Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Hypocrisy that Surrounds Us...
The Hypocrisy that Surrounds Us...
By J.M. Hamilton (7-20-13)
Sometimes it all lines up. If you stay plugged in long enough, combine the latest headline news with a wealth of life time experience, and the dots suddenly connect. For me, it was a recent Bloomberg piece noting how the Haredim in Israel were harassing Jewish women for practicing their faith at the Western Wall. Who are the Haredim, you ask?
Haredim are a small minority in Israeli society (less than 10% of the population), the ultra-orthodox of the Jewish faith, who basically rule the country. The Haredim enjoy outsized political influence, government granted monopolies, government subsidies, and are exempt from otherwise mandatory military service, not to mention work or labor. So here's a small group of Israeli citizens, with a passionate religious bent, who basically dictate how the rest of Israeli society acts, behaves, and have exceptional political power.
Which made me think about the Saudi regime, and the religious extremism practiced in that country, whereby women are kept out of sight, under-educated, and otherwise generally repressed, by the mutaween, or Islamic Religious Police Force. The Saudi's of course, backed for many years and to this day by Western governments, export Wahhabism - which in turn spawned Al Qaeda and the Taliban. To understand just how extreme the Taliban is, they have persecuted a little girl, who just wanted to learn, by shooting her in the head. Her story was recently told, by her, at the U.N.
There are some who say, you can judge a country by how it treats its women.
In this country, we have our own particular brand of religious extremism within the Christian community, which has been particularly dominant in dictating the cultural norms, laws, and values of the nation, since its founding; and more recently, has been very dominant in the Republican Party for the last 35 years.
"What on earth is J.M.H. driving at," you ask, "Why surely J.M.H. doesn't mean to compare the Christian- Right community in the U.S. with the Taliban, Wahhabism, and the Haredim. Or does he?"
Alas, it is so. For what these religious groups have in common, besides often being sworn enemies of one another, is that a small to sizable minority in each society (be it the U.S., Israel, or throughout the Middle-East, Afghanistan and Pakistan) dictates how the majority live, and indeed, persecutes anybody who gets in their way. These groups as often as not have a messianic vision and are absolutely convinced they know God and exactly how She wants them, and their respective societies/countries to live and behave. That these flocks and congregations are often used by their respective religious and political leaders/authorities, is often lost upon the faithful. Think about it, if your sole focus in this world is on God and the next world, just how easily you're exploited by the religious and political authorities in this world?
For yet another common denominator within the Haredim, the Taliban, and Right leaning Christian groups, is the embrace of ignorance, an antipathy towards science, and a general lack of education. Here, in this country, think of none other than Mr. Rick Santorum - who trashed higher education in the 2011and 2012 Republican primaries, who also happens to possess several advanced degrees.
What is a concern is not that these groups want to practice their faith (I choose to practice my faith daily and on Sunday), but rather, that these groups want to impose their will upon the majority. Moreover, these groups often use religion to justify all kinds of assaults upon humanity. In this country, the religious right wants every child conceived to be born (okay - notably - sounds like a worthy enough aim), but then turns its back on these same children by cutting off social support and failing to recognize, or simply ignoring the fact, that many of these children are born into poverty.
Ironically, the adherents of these various faiths often say they are persecuted, but then turn a blind eye to their own intolerance and persecution of others. President Bush (W), a self professed Christian, recently acknowledged that he was not in a position to judge others. Amen to that Mr. Bush! I've yet to see a liberal or secular citizen force a Right leaning Catholic or Evangelical to be gay or have an abortion. Allow me to repeat, the Secularist and the Left are not forcing their will upon the practitioners of faith.
In this country, the religious right embraces a political party that often operates at cross purposes with their own faith and economic interests; whether it be denying citizenship to the latest wave of evangelicals, Mexican immigrants, or supporting tax cuts for the wealthy, which the middle class and the majority of the religious right subsidizes - if they are fortunate enough to have a job - by paying a higher tax rate.
That Christ was about helping the poor and turning the other cheek, appears completely lost on today's Republican Party, except during the election season when they pander to their Christian base.
In 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater stated that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, but we now know that extremism in the defense of liberty and faith, often thwarts liberty and turns people away from faith. Witness the decline in church attendance in this country, and a loss of faith among many of the nation's youth.
PS: President Obama wants us to reflect upon Mr.Martin's
untimely demise; some would argue, however, that the time for reflection has
long since passed and the time for action has arrived.
For starters, the President should address the criminal justice industrial complex that incarcerates millions of African-American males, often for victimless crimes like drug possession. This policy is designed to disenfranchise the black male- since in many states those with a felony conviction cannot vote.
Incarceration for drug possession or use is inhumane and the poll tax of our times.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
He put a lid on Pentagon spending.
"Eisenhower was a conservative and frugal president who insisted on balancing the budget. He put a lid on Pentagon spending. He defended Social Security and labor laws, while building the interstate highways and funding the national education defense act. He was re-elected in a landslide"
The appalling GOP
By Katrina vanden Heuvel,
There really isn’t any other word. Congressional Republicans are simply appalling. They have absolute control of the House. They set the agenda. They decide what comes to the floor. They decide what passes on to the Senate.They know that extreme legislation isn’t going to be enacted into law. The Democratic majority in the Senate and the Democratic president stand in the way. So the legislation they choose to pass is a statement of their own values. It is simply designed to proclaim, “This is where we stand.” And for the vast majority of Americans, what they proudly proclaim is simply beyond the pale.
Republicans just passed a farm bill. It lards out $195 billion in subsidies for agribusiness. At the same time, they chose to drop food stamps — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — from the bill for the first time in 40 years. In this time of mass unemployment, 47 million Americans rely on food stamps. Nearly one-half are children under 18; nearly 10 percent are impoverished seniors. The recipients are largely white, female and young. The Republican caucus has decided to drop them from the bill as “extraneous,” without having separate legislation to sustain them. Who would want to advertise these cruel values?
Republicans in the House passed a 2014 budget guideline. They know the Senate won’t accept it. They refuse even to enter into negotiations with the Senate to find a compromise.
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