The New American Conscience: A Short Study in Immorality, Part I

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” -  So said Vice President Dick Cheney on camera during a Bush II Cabinet meeting.  This meant that continuing deficit spending to justify attacking and occupying Iraq was just peachy keen.  Borrow and spend trillions of dollars and find no WMDs found yet is dismaying to say the least.  But those members of the “Axis of Evil” as Bush called them were fair game to do whatever it takes.  Sounds sort of Biblical, doesn’t it?  So no expense was too high the White House and the Pentagon jointly decided.  Deficits really don’t matter. 

So up went the National Debt another $4 Trillion!  It only took 8 years.  So who profited from the “Decider’s” self-righteous judgments which later led to wars and long stints of boots on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq?  Why the Military Industrial Complex did.  War corporations who build software and hardware for drones, tracking beams for missiles, ammunition, and tank artillery shells tipped with Uranium 238.  Looks like Ike was right.  Trillions of dollars spent on war, especially when the Complex has a captive government like Uncle Sam with a well-oiled printing press at the Fed, and that ain’t chopped liver.

Sure, Uranium 238 is radioactive and a real problem.  The US decision to use this radioactive isotope in warfare in the desert sands of Kuwait and later, Iraq had a way of spreading this radioactive material not just to the four corners of Kuwait and Iraq but to the neighboring region as well.  Why did we use radioactive material to tip the large canon shells in the first place?  Well, it is a heavier element than lead, and will penetrate steel much easier than other metals used in a tipped shell.  The projectile will travel twice as far as conventional ones.  Plutonium would do just as well as the Uranium, but the expense would be too great, and terrorists might get a wild idea to try to harvest enough of this isotope to make a suitcase bomb.  Anyway, the U 238 has a half-life of 4.46 billion years, so what a wonderful legacy to leave the Iraqis with until the end of the world.  An Alpha Radiation Emitter, U 238 decays by naturally ejecting Alpha Particles (2 Protons and 2 Neutrons) continuously from the mass of U 238.  The tip of the shell penetrates the enemy armor, explodes, and burns all inside the tank alive.  The U 238 is blown to a fine ash and scatters to the four winds where it settles upon the sand.  There it picks up some Oxygen atoms (undergoes oxidation), becomes a compound (Uranium Oxide) and turns black.  The next big sandstorm lifts the radioactive residue and sand into the air, and it is breathed by every creature that breathes on the planet, including man.  Wherever the wind blows, particulates of the U 238 isotope lodge in the lungs.  There it will continue to spit out Alpha Particles which will ionize healthy lung tissue and cause an alteration in the physiology of the aspirating animal, given a little time.  Bottom line, most probably, lung cancer will be on the coroner’s report as the cause of death.  And all the rabbits and unsuspecting camels will never know why their terminal years are so void of quality as they struggle to breathe as their lungs react to the U 238, the irradiation of cellular tissue, and of course the cancer.

Wow.  Best cross Iraq off your vacation list.  But what about the people, the Iraqis who live and breathe there every day of their lives?  I wonder if the press will give new and multiple cases of cancer there much coverage.  It is such a shameful admission to make that we caused it by our own stupid abuse of our responsibility to not hurt the innocent.  But there are considerations.  There are reputations to consider and of course probable class action lawsuits in the making against the US.  And denials to make, ad infinitum.  Makes you wonder if we would use the same armor-piercing shells if we were attacked and found ourselves in a tank battle with the Chinese Army in the Nevada dessert.  Think Nevada real estate would tank in value even worse if the landscape were covered with a powdering of U 238?  I bet the Casinos would not like it very much.  You can bet that people would not go there anymore to pull the one-armed bandits.

Oh well, an opener pulling the curtain back on America’s cavalier use of radioactive materials in war is always an attention-getter.  We have needlessly delivered countless nuclear dirty bombs to an unsuspecting country of innocent people.  We have spread radioactive materials with a 4.5 billion year half-life so that human habitation will become limited and hazardous from here on out.  What were we thinking?  Or were we thinking at all?

http://iicph.org/du_for_europe_nov_2000  Note:  Some Notable Biological Concerns of using Nuclear-Tipped Artillery Shells

One could criticize without much opposition.  Bottom line, why employ Uranium-tipped shells to pierce enemy tank armor in the first place?  Why not just set the enemy tanks on fire with Napalm, White Phosphorus, or other such means not associated with nuclear radiation or long term decontamination procedures required to restore the land to accommodate human habitation?  Every time the wind blows and especially during sandstorms there will be no escape from the airborne radiation.  Swell.  Did the Pentagon fall and hit their head?

I mean it’s not like we didn’t have other superior weaponry such as aircraft with smart bombs, drones with hellfire missiles, Tomahawk Missiles, you know, the usual arsenal, right?  You think that might be one of the reasons some countries overseas (including allies of the United States) might be interested in nabbing some of our leaders for war crimes if they ever set foot on the wrong soil.  Like Spain or Italy, perhaps?

Speaking of an uncaring attitude coming from the USA how about them mercenary Blackwater contractors that shot up Iraqi civilians perhaps just for fun and target practice?  And no punishment provisions for their transgressions got much of a ho-hum from the American press or American people.  And the U.S. courts whitewashed it all to make it look like it was not the Blackwater mercenaries fault.  Yet videos sometimes tell a lot about the nature of a man or the organization he works for. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7FUF-lINs  Note:  Where there’s smoke there’s Blackwater

Lordy, what would John Wayne say to that?  US judges dismissing charges and all, made Blackwater seem bulletproof and protected from the very seat of our government.  Paid over 5 times as much as an uniformed soldier of the United States, Blackwater guns for hire were worth the $1 Billion Uncle Sam paid its founder and owner Erik Prince, right?  Not.  But our Constitution says mercenaries may be hired to fight overseas wars with tight stipulations.  They can be used for no longer than a 2-year period, and must be subject to other regulations and rules as defined by those who command these mercenary armies.  To pay them 5 times the normal pay as real American soldiers is ludicrous.  Because a military draft these days is politically incorrect, it should be disallowed for a president to fill in the gaps with hired mercenaries like Blackwater provides.  Bush hired them and Obama has increased their numbers, only the organization no longer goes by the name of Blackwater. 

To allow the president to hire at will militias answerable only to him is the stuff revolutions are made of.  It, like nuclear-tipped artillery shells is totally unnecessary and wrong.  And innocent people whether taxed for the increased cost of waging war or innocents shelled by unmonitored bullets from the guns of mercenaries is anything but humane.  It is not befitting of a country who believes in freedom and fair dealing for all peoples.  The Founding Fathers would shudder at the phoniness and attempted justification of it all.  And the stench of depravity that goes with embracing such a practice that seeks to fool honest taxpayers into hurting innocent people.  Isn’t that what bin Laden did to us on 911? 

Imagine America without Unions

Imagine what life in the United States would (or will) be like without unions. To conjure up such an image, one needs only to go back in time when unions didn’t exist… back to the Dark Ages and feudalism, back to injustice, slavery, indentured servants, and castles surrounded by rat-infested thatched-roof shanties housing the starving, uneducated paupers.

Yes, picture what it would be like to try to survive without a union. It’s a journey, if braved, one cannot simply forget.

Wisconsin went down in flames tonight (June 5, 2012). Labor in this country suffered a major blow. The general election is next. As labor goes, so goes the Democratic Party. Are its leaders that obtusely ignorant? Labor is the base of the Democratic Party as are white fundamentalists the base of the Republican Party. DNC leadership needs a swift kick in the ass right now. They have a history of defecating on their own base while appeasing enemies in the other party, a party pledged to destroy us.

The blame lies at the feet of Barack Obama who showed no courage in standing up against poor advice dished out by his spineless political staff. He promised in 2007 to put on walking shoes to demonstrate with labor if collective bargaining was ever challenged. Where was he?

Although the Chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party did not blame the national organization for the colossal defeat tonight, party and union members (for the most part) do. I hate to break it to DNC leaders: Wisconsin Democrats will not be very inclined to vote for Obama in November. They feel betrayed, stabbed in the back. After such a long, expensive and bitter battle, Wisconsin Dems cannot be energized to vote party-line in November so soon after this heart-wrenching defeat that could have been a victory if only the national leadership would have done its job. A traditional Democratic state in general elections, Wisconsin is now a swing state – thanks to Obama’s broken promises.

On the other hand, Republicans nation-wide sense a license to bash unions more. The impact was predictable. Only the DNC couldn’t foresee.

Wisconsin Democrats were outspent 8 to 1 – thanks to George W. Bush’s Supremes which unleashed billionaires to buy Wisconsin. The Citizens United decision will go down in history as one of the worst, on a par with Dred-Scott. But that does not in any way excuse Democratic Party leaders who were AWOL from the Wisconsin war. As a result, Wisconsin may be lost to Romney in November, thus sweeping the entire election for the right. The DNC blew it.

When in Wisconsin March 2012, I heard most union members voice support for a general strike in response to Walker’s killing collective bargaining. The DNC and AFL-CIO national officers quickly jumped in and advised Wisconsin Dems to take the more “civil” course: recall elections. They claimed we would have success that way, but a general strike would be counterproductive, they said.

Unfortunately, Wisconsinites accepted their advice. Where were the national leaders and national money when needed most after they advised recalls? It was pure BS.

Without an ounce of shame, rightwing extremists over the country now call union members “thugs.” I personally heard that derogatory remark several times on my visit to Wisconsin March 2011, and now I hear it like a cascading avalanche from politicians, governors, and so-called “Christians” (the white rightwing derivative). Without question, anti-unionism is on a roll. Union members are the “Jews” of the neo-Nazi movement which we politely call the U.S. Republican Party today. Every cult requires a scapegoat to justify its existence; unionists are currently the rightwing’s.

Apparently there’s a lot of hate and animosity out there for folk that bargain with their bosses to achieve better working conditions, benefits and pay. Is that wrong? Many rightwing Americans think so. Unfortunately, they’ve been brainwashed by the right’s noise machine. Plus, the Democratic leadership has a major messaging problem. They’re blinded by ivory palace comfort and isolation from the core grassroots.

Labor unions have a long and challenging history in the United States. To some people, they conjure up thoughts of organized crime and gangsters like Jimmy Hoffa. To workers who actually know first-hand, labor unions represent solidarity among the working classes, bringing people together across many levels to lobby for better rights, wages and benefits. Unions are also an important and fundamental part of the history of United States commerce and the country’s growth into an economic powerhouse.

Without unions, there’d be no Middle Class, no 40-hour week, no weekends, no over-time, no child-labor laws, no pensions, no healthcare, no workers’ comp, and no job safety regulations.

Without unions, everyone beneath the 1% would be making less than minimum wage. Without unions, workers would be fired for no reason with no one to represent them in case they wanted their jobs back.

So what do unions do and why are they still important? Labor unions help ALL workers today – including those in a non-union shop. Without unions, employees at places like Wal-Mart or Target would have no rights or benefits whatsoever. The union movement gave birth to it all (including Social Security and Medicare), and without its influence, places of employment would return to patterns dating back of pre-labor history.

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing. As workers moved away from agriculture to factories, mines and other hard labor, many faced terrible working conditions: long hours, low pay and health risks. Many children worked in factories, and women and children generally received lower pay than men. The Republican-controlled government did little to limit these injustices, and in the United States, along with much of the industrialized world, labor movements developed which lobbied for better rights and safer conditions.

In the evolution of the Union Movement, labor leaders were imprisoned, beaten, assaulted and even murdered. Mother Jones experienced prison several times, although the only crime she ever committed was defending workers. Thousands were arrested for simply picketing or passing out information pamphlets.

Without a collective bargaining network, union workers would be just as well off flipping burgers at fast-food joints or waiting tables at the greasy spoon.

Think what it’d be like without unions. No Social Security, Medicare, over-time pay, safety regs, weekends, child labor laws, worker protections, workers comp, EEO, etc. Of course, that’s where some would like to take us – back to the bad-ole-days when folk were mostly slaves.

Now imagine what Republicans will do to us in the fall when they take over both houses of Congress and the White House. After all, that’s where we’re heading – thanks to the poor leadership of the Democratic Party. Their elitism is killing us. With such friends, who needs enemies?

JUBILEE: What’s It All About?

‘Jubilee’ comes from the Hebrew word ‘Yovel’, meaning an outburst of joy, or a trumpet blast of liberty. From the Hebrew scriptures, it refers to a year of rest to be observed every 50^th year, during which slaves were to be set free. ‘Concentrate the 50^th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.’ (Leviticus 25) For African Americans in the ante-bellum south during the long years of slavery, the concept of a jubilee came to have an almost mystical significance. The ‘year of jubilee’ was one of the expressions slaves used to refer to a time when their enslavement would come to an end. Then came Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1^st 1863, during the civil war. It was ‘the great day of Jubilee’ for the emancipated slaves and for all freedom-lovers. Thus, in its biblical and historical context, ‘jubilee’ is a celebration of liberation.

The celebration of Elizabeth II‘s diamond jubilee during the first days of June was entirely devoid of any such associations. Most nations have founding myths, which are just that – myths. But when US citizens celebrate The Fourth of July (Independence Day) and French citizens celebrate The Fourteenth of July (Bastille Day), we may assume that most of them associate those dates with historical events leading to the foundation of the independent national states to which they belong. Terms such as ‘conceived in liberty’ and ‘liberty, fraternity, equality’, are part of their national identity. In Latin America, despite cynical exploitation by generations of dictatorial and authoritarian regimes, concepts of anti-colonial liberation, social justice and revolution, associated with ‘Libertadores’ such as Bolivar, Marti and Zapata, live on in the memories and aspirations of the people. National anthems are supposed to capture this spirit. Whatever divisions and conflicts may afflict the nation (and one doesn’t have to look far to see plenty of evidence of divided and conflict-ridden nations), the anthems are national and they proclaim a mythical unity which can be a powerful ideological force. National anthems do not pre-date the formation of nation states. The nationalism they proclaim is still a relatively new phenomenon, in most cases dating from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The British ‘national’ anthem is not national in the sense of most of the others. In fact it is not a national anthem at all. It is a monarchist hymn – a paean to the monarch. It is astonishing that the sheer idiocy of the words of the monarchist anthem do not seem to trouble either the monarch to whom they are addressed or those of her subjects who are still prepared, or required, on occasion to intone them. The first verse, imploring the Almighty to ‘save’ the Queen and to ‘set her victorious, long to reign over us’ are well known. It is doubtful whether more than one in thousands knows the second and subsequent verses. The second alone will suffice to get a sense of what follows it:

‘O Lord God arise
Scatter our enemies
And make them fall!
Confound their knavish tricks
Confuse their politics
On you our hopes we fix
God save the Queen!

This antiquated, embarrassing nonsense must be unique amongst anthems for being so totally out of touch with anything relating to this or any other country during the past 250 years. Actually it relates to events that occurred more than 250 years ago. It was first sung in support of the Hanoverian George II at the time of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and it contained a verse imploring the Almighty to crush ‘rebellious Scots’. Needless to say, that verse has been abandoned.

The diamond jubilee was a very big event in Britain, though more particularly in England. The news media covered it unsparingly and effusively. It is tempting to compare the obsequies of the BBC and the national press, and the cheering throngs of flag-waving fans, to the stage-managed public adulation accorded 20^th century dictators and those still surviving into the 21^st century. But such comparison is not quite accurate. In most of the latter cases it is fair to say that the crowds would not have turned out to cheer had they not been compelled to do so. The hundreds of thousands who lined London’s streets and riverside for the processions and the flotilla, and the millions who attended street parties throughout the land, were not compelled to do so. They did so willingly and for the most part apparently enthusiastically, despite persistent rainfall on Sunday, 3 June, which dampened the monarch’s passage along the river. Anyone watching the event on television could be in no doubt that the enthusiasm was entirely spontaneous.

The only other occasion in recent times when crowds of this size have turned out for a ‘royal’ event was the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. But this was in some respects an ‘anti-royal’ event. Then, the complex motivations (including reaction to high-octane, emotional media coverage) that brought so many onto the streets in a conspicuous show of public grief, expressed serious criticism of the monarch and the heir to the throne. The queen and other members of the royal family were seen as cold and aloof and largely responsible for ostracizing Diana. Prime Minister Blair’s brainwave, describing her as the ‘People’s Princess’, was very effective PR. The ‘outpouring of grief’, largely media-induced, had the possibly unintended consequence of further damaging the standing of the monarch in the eyes of the public. How then can we explain the dramatic turn-around in her public image since then? From a cold, distant, uncaring elderly figure she has been miraculously transformed into everybody’s aged aunt, presiding somewhat inscrutably, but with quiet dignity over her grateful subjects. The Duke of Edinburgh, widely regarded as a tiresome buffoon, has now become the old, but still upright uncle about whose ailing health we are all apparently concerned.

The transformation is, in part at least, the result of a carefully planned and thoroughly executed public relations rebranding exercise. In a New Statesman article (Queen of Spinners. 4.June 2012), George Pascoe-Watson, a partner at the PR firm Portland Communications, reveals how this was accomplished. Public disenchantment with the royal family began before the death of the Princess of Wales. The break-up of Charles and Diana’s marriage, the exemption of the Queen and the Duke from payment of income tax and, despite their fabulous wealth, their refusal to meet the cost of the refurbishment of Windsor Castle, led to deep public resentment. The Queen’s popularity reached an all-time low after the death of Diana. According to Pascoe-Watson, she personally initiated the rebranding exercise. It has been carried through with almost military precision, which is not surprising given that the PR teams engaged to manage it include a former Ministry of Defence communications professional - wife of an ex Royal Navy officer, an ex-army former UN adviser in the Balkans, an ex-SAS officer and a former Foreign Office and MoD press officer. The PR teams are responsible for the public presentation of the Queen and the Duke, Prince Charles, the princes William and Harry and Kate Middleton. ‘The only sources of stories ‘, writes Pascoe-Watson, ‘are official ones – or the royals themselves when they are on public display.’ …’Nowadays, nothing is published that the royal family doesn’t wish to see in broadcast.’ Interestingly, he claims that ‘An operation has begun, it seems, to bolster Prince Charles among the British public in preparation for his accession to the throne.’

For months the PR exercise has been in overdrive building up to the Jubilee. It has been very successful. At a time of increasingly painful austerity, with the economy in a double-dip recession and the international situation growing grimmer by the day, this extravaganza seems to have diverted very large numbers of people of all classes. Even though it may be largely forgotten by most of them in a week or so, it is nevertheless a phenomenon that cannot be ignored by the minority of republicans in Britain whose voices were drowned out by media hype and celebrants’ cheers. Even The Guardian, a paper which many years ago nailed its colours to the republican mast, devoted a full five pages to the jubilee on 4 June. The peculiarity of all this is striking if one tries to imagine any other liberal democracy where a head of state, elected or not and however old, could be feted so fulsomely and for so long in this way. The Scandinavian countries? Belgium? Holland? Spain? Germany? France? Why then, Britain?

Even allowing for a skillful PR exercise orchestrated from Buckingham Palace, and for the power of the media to march in lock-step with it, it is still extraordinary – and extraordinarily depressing – that the rational voice of republicanism could be effectively laughed out of court as irrational, drowned out by the royalist ballyhoo. It can be partly explained by the present public contempt for establishment politicians and also by the fact that there is no really effective opposition to the disastrous policies of the Con-Lib Dem government. In this situation, the story that the monarch is ‘above politics’ and a stabilizing force, or a calm, steady presence in an uncertain world, is one that many are prepared to listen to.

But the truth is that this monarch, like her forbears is actually a mediocrity. She belongs to an undistinguished aristocratic line whose connection with and understanding of ordinary people is minimal to say the least. Her overriding interest seems to be horse-racing. The institution itself is an anachronism; a long past its sell-by date vestige of an undemocratic past .The very notion that a democracy could possibly entertain as its head of state someone, whoever it may be, whose claim to office rests on the hereditary principle, essentially on some version of ‘divine right’, should be regarded by all rational people as preposterous.

But, there is a glimmer of hope that before too long the public mood may change so that such an absurdity is no longer acceptable. The Queen’s mother lived to be 101. There is a good chance that heredity, aided by the best medicine that money can buy, may allow the Queen to live as long, or longer. Should she do so, the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, will be 77 and his spouse, Camilla will be 79. Imagine the coronation! So, here’s wishing Her Majesty a long, long life. Long may she reign!

How I Evolved from a Mild Mannered Freethinkerist to a Militantly Zealous Devangelist

There is no such word as devangelist but everyone's entitled to put forward a neologism. Houghton-Mifflin offers two closely related definitional statements for evangelism:

1. The zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work.
2. Militant zeal for a cause.

I offer devangelist to describe an infidel/freethinker/atheist or non-believer by any name zealous in disseminating information at odds with gospels and dogmas, faiths and superstitions. A devangelist is a person wholly devoted to science, reason and evidence who exhibits a militant zeal for debunking religion of all kinds and safeguarding the absolute separation of church and state. I hope you like my new word.

The pace of my evolution from mild-mannered freethinker to militantly zealous devangelist has been increased dramatically by the political activism of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops. However, there is much else that really and truly vexes me about religion in this country and around the world. The bishops, however, have sent me over the edge.  

Like the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) and many secular organizations, I don't believe Catholic Bishops have any business politicking for veto power over women's contraceptive health insurance coverage. I don't think they should be serving as campaign allies for the Republican Party. Nor do I think bishops have any right to foist their religious doctrines on American workers, most of whom do not belong to the Catholic Church or subscribe to the medieval tenets of this faith. And I don't think Catholic or any other religious groups are entitled to federal funds for the delivery of health and other services if unwilling to provide services for which said funds are designated.

If Catholic bishops do not want to abide by guidelines for impartial delivery of medical and other services funded by taxpayers, they're free to decline such involvement. No one is holding a proverbial gun to Catholic heads saying, you must participate in these programs. Catholic service program leaders can use their own funds to provide whatever medical or other services they choose to offer, and not offer whatever they choose to withhold.

The bishops' lament about loss of religious freedom is a huge pile of horse dung.

A few details about the bishops egregious sins against church/state separation seem in order. After noting a few such transgressions, I'll suggest a strategy for others who may find themselves on the evolutionary track leading to militantly zealous devangelism.

• The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops pledged a multimillion-dollar attack against the contraceptive mandate. They are using tax-free church pulpits to promote dogma-based politics.
• About 40 Roman Catholic dioceses have sued to block the contraceptive mandate in the new Affordable Health Act.
• The bishops' lawsuits are an attempt to compel the government to pay religions to do less than other, secular recipients of grant funds for health care services. The bishops, in effect, seek to make the government complicit in dogma-driven denial of birth control to non-Catholics as well as Catholics, whether or not these people desire such assistance.
• In decrying what they claim is an assault against religious freedom, the bishops impose their faith-based idea that contraception is sinful on everyone else, which is in fact the true threat to religious and other forms of liberty.
• The Church has initiated a multi-million dollar anti-contraceptive PR campaign featuring pulpit-driven lobbying drives. Fortunately, these funds may well be wasted, since 98 percent of Catholic don't agree with or ignore the church’s injunction against contraception.

Mild mannered freethinkers are too polite and diplomatic to do so, but militantly zealous devangelists will not hesitate to call out these pompous emperors as naked enemies of intellectual liberty and personal freedom. The Catholic bishops are leaders of the world's largest, most powerful cult of unreason. Those like myself who are evolving into MZDs - militantly zealous devangelists, will not stop at simply opposing the campaign of the bishops to restrict contraceptive services. We can and will do more - we will respond in a fashion that makes a difference. This requires efforts to persuade church followers to reassess the nature of the religion imposed upon them as children.

We can in varied ways help Catholics do what I did - escape to freedom and a rational life, shorn of dogma, liberated from pie-in-the-sky heaven and free of the hellish dungeon of eternal darkness, fear and pain.

Such efforts are already underway.

The most notable of such counter-offensives is led by FFRF. The campaign is called It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church. Ads to this effect have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today and elsewhere. One typically attention-grabbing ad asks, "Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs? Another is just as bold: As a member of the ‘flock’ of an avowedly antidemocratic Old Boys Club, isn’t it time you vote with your feet? Please, exit en Mass.

This campaign was, like my neologism, inspired by the church's war against contraception. FFRF is spot on in its criticisms of the Catholic cult. The organization is advising Catholics that their church has launched a legal assault against personal secular freedoms that amount to a ruthless political Inquisition. I love it.

We devangelists agree with FFRF that Catholics should be given a chance to consider the idea that maybe life begins after excommunication and that the time might well have come to join the millions who, like me, have put humanity above dogma and resigned from the church.

Let's do what we can to oppose the bishops and in every way possible prevent these autocrats from allowing their dogma to trump our civil liberties.

Questions I'd Like to See Put to Mitt Romney Concerning the Supernatural World

In 1898, Robert Green Ingersoll wrote an essay entitled, What Is Superstition? It contained this excerpt:

The belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. Back of the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health, sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and death he placed a malicious fiend.

Mormon candidate for president Mitt Romney, a Republican as was Ingersoll, would agree with the Great Agnostic, at least on this point. Anyone familiar with Mr. Romney’s strong religious beliefs knows that the former Massachusetts governor believes in gods and devils, and credits the former for bringing sunshine and harvest while blaming the latter (a malicious fiend) for disease, misfortune and death. 

Should voters care about a candidate’s beliefs about gods and devils? Yes, I think voters should care and would care, if the issues were addressed in very specific ways in public forums.

Do you believe in God? Do you pray? Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Americans expect their politicians to respond yes to these kinds of general questions.

But, what if the questions went deeper? The above questions are almost cliches with the faithful, that is, the nominally faith-based majority. Such questions are too broad to get at what a candidate really thinks – and in Romney’s case, as would have been true of candidates Bachmann or Santorum, what the candidate really believes just might give even otherwise favorably inclined conservatives more than a little pause.

While most Americans claim to be religious and say they believe in God and rarely challenge established norms of supernatural beliefs, I think most would be startled if reporters and others could get Romney to be more specific about his supernatural convictions. If he were just a citizen or a candidate for a lesser office, maybe this would not be such a big deal. But president? 

Consider a few other sentences in Ingersoll’s take on superstition:

Is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? The evidence of the existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. Both of these deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. They have not been seen — they are invisible — and they have not ventured within the horizon of the senses. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian — like a doctor of divinity. Now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil — no longer fears the leering fiend. Most people who think have given up a personal God, a creative deity. They now talk about the ‘Unknown,’ the ‘Infinite Energy,’ but they put Jehovah with Jupiter. They regard them both as broken dolls from the nursery of the past.

Most adults reason like trained theologians. There is plenty of skepticism but a shortage of nerve to talk about doubts. Most adults have embraced religions and all that came with them during the long years of socialization. They were fed a diet of god-talk, bible fables, angels, ghosts, prayers, magical miracles, told about heaven and hell, the authority of priests and so on.  All this Twilight Zone indoctrination arrived unaccompanied by alternate explanations.

This kind of faith only goes so deep. When the ludicrous nature of religion is brought into conscious awareness under certain conditions suitable for rational reassessment, many adults have second thoughts. A pause in consent that is only habitual can lead some to revisit the intellectual appeal of faith contrasted with less familiar explanations from science concerning the natural world.

No better opportunity exists at the moment for sparking this kind of reassessment than the 2012 presidential presidential election. For that, we can thank Mitt Romney.

Here’s a radical idea: Get Romney to be specific about his supernatural beliefs. If non-Romney enthusiasts can do that, enough citizens might take a closer look at the implications of this particular Mormon in the White House. A fuller recognition of his supernatural convictions could swing the election to President Obama. While Obama himself is no Ingersoll, or a even a secularist, compared with Romney he’s Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

I find it hard to believe that even religion-besotted Americans want a commander-in-chief, a leader who will have the power to blow up a good chunk of the planet that embraces the supernatural insanities that animate Mitt Romney.

Let me offer a few questions I’d like to see put to the candidate, the better to prompt Americans to look more closely at Romney’s mental state. The attributions about his beliefs are all found in a speech given at the George Bush Presidential Library – see Michael Luo’s article entitled, Romney, Eye on Evangelicals, Defends His Faith, New York Times, December 7, 2007.

   ▪    You have called for a robust role for religion in public life. What would you like to see as part of that role that does not exist at present?

   ▪    You have declared your intention not (to) separate us from the God who gave us liberty. What is the nature of the separation you have in mind and how will you prevent it using the powers of the presidency?

   ▪    What is the evidence that God gave us liberty, versus the liberties provided by our secular Constitution, as written by the Founders after we gained our independent from Great Britain?

   ▪    You say you would not separate us from our religious heritage. Is this a role for the president and, if so, what does it entail and how will you prevent such a separation?

   ▪    What is the evidence for your assertion that the nation’s founders envisioned a prominent place for faith in the public square?

   ▪    You have criticized those who seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God, claiming that some are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. To what extent would you, as president, work to have God acknowledged in the public domain beyond any such acknowledgement than is now the case?

   ▪    What would you say to those who affirm that secularism, which you have termed a new religion, is simply the non-presence of deities in government, and thus no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

   ▪    You have often stated that a president will need the prayers of the people of all faiths. How do you know this? How does that work? Can a president not succeed if some faiths don’t come through with prayers? Are some prayers more helpful to a president than others? Which ones are best and how do we know that?

   ▪    You declared: We do not insist on a single strain of religion—rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith. Who is we? Besides welcoming a symphony of faith, how do you feel about a symphony of reason, a quintet of doubt or other combinations from citizen players who prefer no faith at all but rather reliance on critical thinking, evidence and empiricism? Is there an equal place for them in America if you are elected president?

   ▪    You have stated that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. Billions of people around the world would not agree with that statement, tens of millions of Americans would not, either and, what’s more, it’s doubtful that anyone has any idea what it even means. Why does mankind need to be saved, and how will Jesus do that?

No doubt many Americans will have others such questions, and as the campaign gets going more will be suggested. It would, for instance, be helpful to hear from the candidate about religious ideas that he has not volunteered in his frequent appearances in churches, at religious universities and in forums composed primarily of evangelicals. Here are just a few that would most interest secularists like myself:

   ▪    Is the God you believe in male, female or something else?

   ▪    Does “God” speak English? If so, does he/she/it have an accent?

   ▪    Do you believe every word the Mormon religion professes about how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from Egyptian texts? Can you understand why most Americans find this story difficult to believe? 

   ▪    You have talked about having conversations with God. Could you tell us a bit more about these chats? What is the nature of the conversations, how often do they occur, how frequently are you influenced by God’s answers and what does God think about separation of church and state?

For now, answers to these questions will surely encourage original thinking amongst the faithful. If Mitt Romney’s could be induced to be more specific about his superstitions, I believe his prospects for election as president would soon fall in the category Ingersoll described as the broken dolls from the nursery of the past.

Pres. Obama is Wrong on Gay Marriage (It’s a Trick Title)

President Obama has announced that he supports gay marriage.  As he said (1): “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married. . . . I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient. . . . I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” 

Wow!  How about that (as the famous old-time New York Yankees radio broadcaster Mel Allen used to say)?  The President has shared with us his personal view on the subject, which he presumably “evolved” to.  Well that’s nice to know, but as our highest elected official he takes no postion on the law.  In fact he has made it clear that as far as the law is concerned, the matter should be left to the states.  And indeed about 30 of them have out-lawed the institution, at one level of another.  So, how is the President, as the President, not just as some observer whose views have “evolved,” wrong on the issue?  Let us count the ways.

1.         In all 50 states marriage (and its dis-solution) is the subject of civil law. To deny same-sex couples access to that part of the civil law clearly violates Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment.  It among other things provides that the states may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  Thus under the Constitution the states are not free to discriminate in the civil law against a particular sub-group of the population based on their sexual orientation.

2.         He has acknowledged at the same time he is telling us of his personal view that he is sensitive to the views religiously-based opponents of the institution.  Golly gee, Mr. President.  You know that there are some folks who find white supremacy in the Bible, and the justification for slavery and polygamy can be found in it too.  Polygamy was also part of original Mormon doctrine, and is still practiced by some “fundamentalist” Mormons living in far-rural parts of Utah and several neighboring states (with the local law enforcement authorities, for the most part, saying boo to a goose about it, for the most part.  Gov. Romney certainly leaves this one alone when he talks about “marriage traditionally being between one man and one woman.)  The objections to allowing access to that part of the civil law by same-sex couples are always based on religious dicta, most often in this country drawn from Biblical texts (Old and New Testaments and now, the Book of Mormon).  To do so clearly violates the first provision of the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro­hibiting the free exercise thereof.” 

The 14^th Amendment, cited above, also applies the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the States.  Since the banning of same-sex marriage is always “justified” on religious grounds, it clearly “establishes religion” in the law and thus violates the Constitution.  At the same time, under the “free exercise” provision, if a church doesn’t want to perform same-sex marriages it doesn’t have to.  But under the Constitution that does not give state governments the power to ban same-sex marriage in the civil law, for everyone, on religious grounds.

3.         “Anti-gay marriage” laws and initiatives are nothing more or less than dog whistles, more polite indicators, for homophobia.  Can’t be openly against the gays, now can we?  But let’s deny them their civil rights, because they are gay and we don’t like them.  It is well past time that there has to be an attack on this issue.  Homophobia is a deep-seated expression of hatred for folks who are “different,” who are “not like us.”  It is then easy to label gays as second class citizens, and then to make them into second-class citizens by denying them equal rights under the law. 

Many people do not know that the first identity group the German Nazis went after, before they went after the Jews, was the gays.  The mandatory wearing of the Pink Triangle by homosexuals in Nazi Germany came before the mandatory wearing of the yellow Star of David by Jews.  It is fascinating that despite the discrimination, in Nazi Germany there were (presumably closeted) gay members of the Nazi Party.  In fact, Ernst Roehm, the commander of the private Right-Wing militia, the “Sturmabteilung,” the SA, the Brown Shirts, which did so much to push Hitler to power, was gay.  How do we know this?  Well, on what was called “The Night of the Long Knives,” September 30, 1934, when he was assassinated, not because he was gay but because the Prussian Army wanted him and the SA out of the way as part of their price for supporting Hitler, he was murdered in bed alongside a blond 19 year old male.

4.         Finally, politically the most important point to make here is the use to which the Republican Party puts this issue.  Its candidates run on it.  In the 2004 election, Karl Rove arranged to have anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendments put on 11 state ballots, to draw Religious Right voters to the polls so that they could also vote for George Bush.  None other than Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post, a liberal/progressive (but surely no radical leftist) has characterized the contemporary GOP as the “American Faith Party” (2).  (Interestingly enough, that post has been taken down from the site.) 

In fact, all of the leading planks in the Republican Party platform (for years) on the so-called “social issues” (correctly termed “religious issues”) are based in a particular religious doctrine: defining life as beginning at the moment of conception, the practicing of legal discrimination against homosexuals, the banning of the use of stem cells for either research or treatment, for some GOPers, the banning of the use of contraceptives, the prohibition of personal decision-making at the end of life.  And Republicans never lose their enthusiasm for telling us that we are a “Christian Nation under God,” despite the fact that neither the word “Christian” nor the word “God" appears anywhere in the Constitution.

These are the issues that need to be joined politically before it is too late.  But where are the President, and indeed all of the leadership of the Democratic Party on them?  Well, I guess that they are all still “evolving.”

1.         Calmes, J. and Baker, P., “Obama Says Same-Sex Marriage Should be Legal.” New York Times, May 19, 2012.

2.         http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/republican-party-religion-first-religious-party_n_1322132.html

Note: Earlier versions of this column have appeared on OpEdNews and The Planetary Movement.