Do you know what I like best about the New Testament? The part where Jesus of Nazareth tells his followers to starve children, withhold medical treatment from the ill, turn out on the streets the aged, judge others and find constant fault . Yeah I really like the part where The Christ told the people to be uncharitable, judgmental and to seek personal wealth at the expense of others. I also really like the part where he told the priests to build massive edifices to themselves and their own egos and demand the last dime from a poor mother so the minister could buy a new Cadillac.
Those are the parts of the New Testament I really like. What those parts aren’t in the New Testament? Are you certain? Surely they must be, those are the Christian values we are legislating. Those are the Christian values our oh so Christian government and their supporters are telling us are the foundation of our Christian Nation so they must be there somewhere, you and I simply haven’t read the Bible correctly.
If you can’t find that part of the New Testament either, perhaps we need a real ‘Come to Jesus’ with those who claim Christianity is the framework, no the very foundation of the United States, but fail abysmally to follow any of its tenants. Maybe it is time for those of us who have a problem with the entire Prosperity Gospel to stand up and hold accountable those who have decimated generations of our people, the very soul of our nation through their greed and complete lack of empathy. I like this new Pope in Rome, he has turned the fervent followers of the gospel of self, the theology of Free Market on their ears and their asses are thoroughly chapped. Pagans that is what he called them recently, I like that though I suspect true Pagans might take exception.
We come to the end of another year and we have slipped further down the road to perdition. You don’t agree with my assessment of where we are today let me give some examples, tell me where I am wrong:
- Income gap widens between the ‘have’ and the ‘have nots’.
- The American Dream is out of reach for many today and the once robust middle class is disappearing.
- More children are hungry and living in poverty than at any time since the Great Depression.
- More families are homeless.
- Unemployment remains steadily high, above 7% overall but in some groups above 10%.
- Education is slipping, we are falling steadily behind other nations in all critical skills;
- Math, Science, Technology, Literacy
- Retirement guarantees for those who fought for this nation will be cut, while Congress will keep theirs intact.
- Banks and bankers, those nefarious organizations and the men who lead them, you know the ones who nearly brought the world economy to its knees and we the people bailed out, they fought and won to remain free to do it again.
That is just a partial list there are worse things we should acknowledge though, things we say only in whispers to each other for fear of the backlash.
- Approximately 33,772 gun deaths since Newtown. Of these, 205 are children and 548 are teenagers. Read the link for why it is only approximate.
- Our Hawkish government continues their policy of indiscriminate killing of civilians, including women and children in their War on Terrorism. These attacks are in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
- Public policy on spying has stripped away our freedom and we have barely protested, barely raised a single voice to demand our Constitutional Rights be restored. In fact, as a nation we have agreed we would rather be ‘safe’. We are idiots and sheep, to hand over to secret courts our privacy and our freedom.
The culture war is in play, it is in full force, it is insidious and ugly. This is a war to win the hearts and minds of those who do not have the wherewithal to discern truth from lies, what they know is their life is getting worse, the American Dream is out of their reach and it is someone’s fault.
The war on women is ramping up; it is insidious and nastier by the month. We think of this as only the issues on abortion, it is not. This is across the board; it is rape, violence, education, access to healthcare. It is how women are portrayed by and in media when it comes to single mothers, poverty and welfare. It is a host of issues placing women in a harsh and glaring light, forcing us onto a scarlet carpet for a slut walk not of our choosing.
Racism is not a thing of the past; truthfully, racial tensions are high and the ugliness only the icing on a cake that has been slowly baking since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The viciousness spewed daily by those in the media and those hidden behind avatars in social media is nothing less than horrific. Those who deny the blatant racism within our society are nothing less than willfully ignorant.
Should I continue? This is simply rubbing the tip of an iceberg I personally find bone chilling.
As the year draws to a close, I wonder what have we done to fix what is broken, or are we instead caught in an endless loop. Caught simply pointing out the problems, pointing at our dysfunctional government and corrupt elected officials then shrugging, thinking there is nothing to be done. Have we simply decided to laugh at their stupid, inane utterances, while wondering at the constituency that elected them without demanding change?
Let me help, they are us. Unless we do something, unless we stand up we are that constituency that continues to elect the idiots, the fear mongers, the Hawks, the Free Marketeers; we are the problem even if we don’t pull the lever.
The rich continue to enrich themselves, to serve a God I don’t think most of us recognize. The rich have convinced a very large part of this nation and many other nations of a number of things that are not true, have never been true and will destroy us, soon if we don’t start speaking up, if we don’t start demanding a change in behavior both public and private.
I leave you with this, a discussion of empathy something we are sorely lacking.
Note: all references to the Bad Bible were a take off on a Twitter comment. For the life of me I cannot find the original Tweet, however my comment is not a copy.
There are times when the world seems to be a terrible place doesn’t it? For those of us who have soapboxes we climb on, sometimes those ladders get a bit shaky we fall on our asses more often than we would like. Those of us who follow the world of dreadful and ghastly, from the halls of the Hill to the streets of any city USA, sometimes we grow weary of the sheer volume of ugly. I know I do, it is my suspicion others do as well.
There has been a great deal of bitching, whining and otherwise raising the roof regarding the loss of our civil liberties lately. I am all over this issue, I don’t like it and neither should you. In fact, we should be storming the halls of Congress, raising our voices on the lawn of the White House in protest; demanding a reinstatement of our Constitution. Power once given is difficult to take back, authority once ceded is nearly impossible to demand returned to the powerless.
April 8: 4-year-old shoots and kills 6-year-old friend Brandon Holt, Toms River, N.J.
The world spins in the same direction and at the same speed, every day of the year. Don’t you just wish it would speed up and fling a few of the Neanderthals out into orbit, I know I do and these days that wish seems to be the one most often at the forefront of my mind. I seem to be keeping a roll of pennies in my purse for fountains and wishing wells, just so I can make that wish as often as possible. Do you think I need to up the ante, change my roll to nickels, dimes maybe even quarters?
I looked out at thirty-three faces all staring back at me as I stood at the front of the room. Some young, some old, one woman the rest men. They did not want to be in this stuffy room sitting on those uncomfortable chairs. They didn’t have a choice, each one of them had been ordered into this room on this night for Victim Impact. Each one of them was a Texas Department of Criminal Justice Parolee; if they hadn’t signed in tonight, they could be revoked and returned to prison.
The above is part of the letter I received from Angela McCown, Director of Victim Services in Austin in reference to the status of one of the AssHat offenders who on February 7, 1992 kidnapped me, shot me three times and left me to die on a dark road alone. For his crime against me and another victim in a separate offense, equally heinous he received a sentence of 35 years.
you have likely killed your own family along with the bad guys and if they aren’t down you aren’t getting out alive).
Wander the malls festooned with fake glitter and false boughs of pine, blasting Christmas carols of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men. Peace and goodwill, one has to wonder how we accomplish this wondrous peace and goodwill when one of our nation’s most dominate and viciously protected rights is the ‘right’ to bear arms.
never be considered, we do not count in the grand scheme and neither do any other gun violence victims. So long as the Neanderthals in the NRA can convince enough people it is viable they might someday need to protect themselves from the government, or save a life during a mass shooting, or battle a zombie horde by keeping a well-stocked arsenal in their basement and a side-arm concealed, just in case.
QBG_Tilted Tiara 