The question is is whether the Cosmic Tide is moving in or out. Is liberalism on the ascendency or decline? Below are a few reflections from Washington's blog but first I'd like to comment on a remark of Martin Luther King saying that all people were promised the Inailable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Martin Luther King says "The bill is now due and payable and Black people have come to cash that check". That's a lot to think about. Where is the Promise of the American Dream for Black people? Then we have the issues the Pope has referenced on global warming. As Thom Hartman points out it is not just a problem for some point off in the distant future, it is a problem for today, right now. Because global warming has already begun to affect us sooner than many people believed it would. We then have the issue of capitalism run amuck without any policing or referees to make sure that "the game" is being played fairly. Even if Adam Smith were around today I am convinced he would not like what he was seeing. We all know the strengths of capitalism. We also know what the Bible says about good people being reward with blessings in the here and now. But this Biblical truth gets twisted around to instead mean that goodness and virtue themselves come through the acquisition of much wealth. In other words people have come to trust in money and take their focus off of God Himself. People like Judy would go further to say that virtue and morality themselves Come through vast wealth, and inferentially that atonement for Sin is even available to those with vast wealth and the laws that apply to the rest of us don't apply to the very rich. These are issues the Pope should address. For those who believe in an afterlife- - they should know, as Bob Dylan pointed out "All the money in the world will never buy back your souls". Here are other remarks from Washington's blog from yesterday.
Saudi Arabia is dropping bombs, including U.S.-made cluster
bombs, on Yemen, slaughtering children by the hundreds. Saudi Arabia is brutalizing
the people of Bahrain, not to mention the people of Saudi Arabia. Saudi
Arabians are funding ISIS and other murderers in the region. Are all of these
murders acceptable even if the crucifixion isn’t? Or can we seize this
opportunity to build opposition to all murder? Or might we if the Pope mentions
it to Congress. In the oppinion of this writer, we need to de-fund the perils of Saudi Arabia and Israel, because both nations are war mongers and sponsorers of terrorism.
On Tuesday the Senate Armed Services Committee brought in David
Petraeus to testify yet again on how to escalate more wars. Petraeus recently
proposed arming al Qaeda. Senator John McCain gave Petraeus credit on Tuesday
for extending the Iraq war from 2007 to 2011. Petraeus noted that the whole
region is in horrible turmoil. Nobody made any connection between the U.S. wars
on Iraq and Libya that have created that turmoil and the results. Nobody
questioned the wisdom of using more war to try to repair the damage of war. There was a video offered by a guy with a microphone standing outside the White House grounds talking about Petraeus's speech and I thought he was kidding but apparently was serious in saying Petraeus was actually Proud of the fact that he extended the Iraq war several years, and the "Good News" in congress these days is not the Gospel of Redemption but instead a "gospel" of the prospect of new and endless wars. (Selah)
Well, a few of us did. The wonderful CodePink was there as
always. I was there with a sign that said “Arm al Qaeda? Reagan tried that.”
The mad men who run the U.S. government have reached the point
of re-arming the enemies of enemies whose blowback first drove them to
radically escalate the global murder of innocent people in the name of opposing
terrorism while increasing it.
The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance had an answer to this on Tuesday,
taking a protest of endless war and environmental destruction to the gate of
the White House.
The Secret Service arrested the people in the photo below rather
than accept a letter from them articulating their opposition to policies of
massive cruelty to the earth and its inhabitants.
The Pope has the opportunity to speak that same message to
Congress and to the U.S. corporate media. Will he use it?
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