It is now quite clear that the banks and other financial institutions scream against government interference, but when they screw up money matters badly, they scream for the government to help them.   It seems that when they are making money and getting huge bonuses they bravely broadcast against the government, but when things get tough, help!  They want all of the benefits and bonuses but none of the risks.  Disgusting.  This is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to our current capitalist beggars.  Since Ronald Reagan schemed in the White House to secret arms deals with Iran for money to support the illegal Contras, the double standard among wealthy right-wingers has been rampant.  Perhaps the saddest part of it is how they have used lobbyists to hood-wink the average American.

By all accounts, the Cash for Clunkers program has not only worked but has been a huge success.  The federal government came up with a wonderful way to jump-start the auto industry in the U.S. AND get rid of some of the old gas-guzzlers.  One problem: the auto dealers, those local capitalists, have tried to scam the system in many places.  They had signed deals with customers to sell a car, then they pulled the old double-switch and told the customers that the car price was higher but don't worry you are still getting a good deal with the government's help.  And now some dealers are complaining that they are selling too many cars and hate to wait for the government's reimbursement.  There is no end to greed.

Greed-capitalism is not only rampant among big business.  This greed phenomenon has gripped all Americans.  We do not now buy to meet our need, we buy to meet our greed.  We do not save, we over-spend and in the process see ourselves as "real" Americans and the underserved as "those" Americans.  There is little room for empathy, compassion, charity, equality, and sharing in a greed-capitalist mindset.  "I've got mine, too bad about you."   We have not only lost our way, we have lost our values.  Thank goodness we now have a man in the White House who has a more humane perspective.

Today, far too many Americans think it is acceptable that 50 million of their fellow citizens do not have health insurance.  Too many Americans think it is okay to mistreat the children of immigrants.  Too many Americans think we can bully our way to international democracy [U.S. style, that is].  Too many Americans see themselves as Christians and act like they never heard the compassionate words of Jesus of Nazareth.  Too many Americans do not see the connection between the arts and civilization.  Too many Americans buy the corporate behemoth propaganda and proudly think they understand.  Too many Americans have taken on greed as their religion, and to hell with the rest.

It is important that I pause here to thank all the people who posted comments on my blog.  It is greatly appreciated.  Such loyalty is amazing.  ALL of your comments support my blog's perspective.  The difference is between those who realize this, and those who do not.  In any case, thanks.

After years of carrying the pure banner of Christian principles and family values, the conservatives have been uncovered for their two-faced lives.  Hypocrisy, found in both political parties, was used majestically by the conservatives.  They condemned every moral slip by "the other guy."  JFK, Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton were favorite targets of the hypocritical right-wing.  But as immorality and double-standards in the right-wing became abundantly clear, there is now a hint that their judging the other guy may stop.  There is hope.  But those who practice such two-faced lying hold onto their deception firmly.

There should be no need to go to a list of immoral activities by right-wingers.  It is all-too-common to try and hide.  George W. Bush's early years have been touched-up a bit.  Ronald Reagan was a playboy in Hollywood even while married.  Newt Gingrich had a lifestyle that could only be termed "sleazy."  Henry Hyde led the fight to impeach Clinton while he tried to cover up his own adultery.  The list goes on.

But the double-standards and hypocrisy of the right-wing are somewhat different.  They gloat in their own morality and family values, and judge liberals ...until they are caught.  The latest D.C. sex scandals tied to C Street are not only growing, they are snow-balling.  David Goldstein and Dave Helling of McClatchy News Service have written about it in detail.  Behind the Library of Congress, around the corner from the Republican Party's national headquarters, the former convent at 133 C St. SE has been used by the right-wing religious strutters for Bible study, spiritual counsel, and the National Prayer Breakfast.   But the intimacy going on by right-wingers was not only silent prayer and reflection, there were plenty of on-going sexual trysts taking place.   While leading Republicans displayed their "purity" like proud peacocks, the right-wingers were embroiled in headline scandals involving extramarital affairs. 

The leading cheaters were some of the Republican Party's darlings of family values.  Among those "caught with their pants down" on C Street were: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, former Congressman Chip Pickering of Mississippi.

"It is a reminder to all of us that we ought to be a lot less judgmental," said Kansas Republican Congressman Jerry Moran.  Oh, really?  Does that mean only for right-wing sleazeballs, or  for liberals also?  "All of us have failings in life, and part of what a Christian believes is the ability to overcome those difficulties and to find forgiveness,"  Moran said.  NOW you say that.  NOW, after all your right-wing buddies have been caught.  It would be nice if the hypocritical right-wingers were so...so "Christian" in offering such generosity for others beside their own two-faced, immoral conservatives.   I'm not holding my breath.

"We have among us a class of mammon worshippers whose one test of conservatism or radicalism is the attitude one takes with respect to accumulated wealth.  Whatever tends to preserve the wealth of the wealthy is called conservatism, and whatever favors anything else, no matter what, they call socialism." -Ronald T. Ely

"Callous greed grows pious very fast." -Lillian Hellman

"Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." -Ambrose Bierce

"The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all in their separate and individual capacities." -Abraham Lincoln

"HEW [Health, Education, Welfare] has testified that the incidence of fraud among welfare recipients is about four-tenths of one percent. . .nothing to compare with estimates by the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] that 34 percent of private interest income goes unreported." -"The New Republic" magazine

"Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life.  The hair-raising revelations of skullduggery and grand-scale thievery merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations." -Charles Francis Adams

"The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing." -Leigh Hunt

"I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian." -Alexander Pope

"What is the new loyalty?  It is, above all, conformity.  It is uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of America as it is.  It rejects inquiry into race relations or socialized medicine, public housing...regards as heinous any challenge to what is called the system of private enterprise, identifying that system with Americanism.  It abandons evolution, repudiates the once popular concept of progress, and regards America as a finished product, perfect and complete." -Henry Steele Commager

As Rush Limbaugh refers to Obama's plans as Nazi, he totally misunderstands what Nazi philosophy is.  It is an extreme right-wing perspective.  I don't think even Rush thinks Obama is a extreme right-winger.  I guess trying to label Obama as a socialist didn't work, so try the other direction.  Sad.

The Nazi and fascist philosophy was tied up in Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.  Hitler especially was helped to power by American capitalists who financed him.  It is well established about what direction Nazi and fascist perspective heads.  You will find it is a right-wing philosophy.  Quotes:

"Fascism, which was not afraid to call itself reactionary...does not hesitate to call itself illiberal or anti-liberal." -Benito Mussolini

"We stand for the maintenance of private property.....We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order." -Adolf Hitler

"Pacifism is simply undisguised cowardice." -Adolf Hitler

"Who says I am not under the special protection of God?" -Adolf Hitler

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth." -Adolf Hitler

"We stand for the maintenance of private property." -Adolf Hitler

It is pure folly to try and debate with the likes of Rush Limbaugh or the right-wing nutcases...

"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument." -William G. McAdoo

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant." -A. B. Alcott

Use any search engine to find tons of undemocratic material posted by the right-wing, the neocon thugs.  [see below for a suggestion]  They tell you how to stop any health care reform.  They suggest that you go to town hall meetings of U.S. Senators and Congresspersons, disperse in the crowd to make you look like a bigger group, and then begin shouting as soon as the town hall opens for questions.  And keep shouting and shout louder and be more aggressive and threatening to the leader of the town hall.  This is the "democracy" of the right wing in America.  It is exactly how the Nazis came to power in Germany.  They turned democratic gatherings into melees and disruptive fights.  There is no room for the opinions of others.  There is no room for democracy for the right-wing, period.

"When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff." -Marcus Cicero

"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance." -Robert Quillen

To put the record straight concerning health care reform, none of the current plans being considered in the House and Senate threaten your current health care.  If you want to keep it, keep it.

Nobody is proposing socialism.  Nobody is proposing rationing out health care.  Nobody is proposing you must use euthanasia.  Nobody is proposing raising the cost of your health care.  Nobody is proposing that Medicare benefits will be lessened.  Nobody is proposing a universal health care program only.  Nobody is proposing that you cannot choose your doctor.  Nobody is proposing to drive insurance companies out of business.

Is the federal government good at administering national programs?  You bet it is!  And with very low overhead.  Medicare and Social Security enjoy widespread comfort with their handling of their recipients..  But nobody is proposing that health care specifics be foisted on you.

The Obama proposals will lower health care costs, and the drug companies and others in the health care field have agreed with him and cooperated.  Not only will costs be lowered, as they are in scores of  industrialized nations with similar plans, the outcomes will be far better, as they are in scores of other industrialized nations.  Currently, the U.S. health care program is akin to a Third World outcome.   But if you like what you have, you will not be forced to change!!!  And the almost 50 million uninsured Americans currently, will finally be brought out of prehistoric times and into the 21st century.

So, no longer will we have astronomical costs compared to France, Germany, etc., but we will be moving toward joining other industrialized nations with outcomes.  Currently we rank near the bottom among industrialized nations ...and it costs us double or triple what they spend on health care!

"Financial ruin from medical bills is almost exclusively an American disease." -Roul Turley

[Simply type in at any search engine: Health care reform scares.....you will find tons of material pointing to the right-wing mob and thug tactics that are criticized by the AARP, Washington Monthly, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and many, many other periodicals and commentaries]

Almost daily we are informed about some new electronic marvel that will make our lives better.  Whether it is in cyberspace, music, literature, telephones, communication, storage, autobiographical info, personal indulgent data, ad infinitum,  I ask you to consider --just consider and ponder-- the following...

With all the amazing electronic gadgetry and musical "instrumentation," has the music gotten better?

With all the electronic and cyberspace opportunities to read material, are we better read?

With the multitude of new gadgetry, have we learned to communicate better?

With an endless array of ways to communicate, are we getting closer as a human species?

With all the marvelous new medical equipment, why do 100,000 patients die from errors in U.S. hospitals annually?

With the wealth of the U.S. zooming to astronomical proportions from new cyber-gadgets, why do we have so many underserved people in the U.S.?

With silicon valley bounding on the scene in the U.S., why do people in Europe live longer than we do?

Indeed, why do people in Europe and Japan receive better health care in their universal payer system?

With all of our military electronic hardware, why do we now kill more civilians than military in war?

Now being able to communicate with others from any place we are at any given time, how come we do not know each other?

We are plunging into an anti-intellectual abyss that pits the rich against the poor.  And little is being done to give the underserved help in being educated and/or cultured.  During the intense daily bombing of England during the Nazi blitz, Churchill saw to it that money was available in support of the arts.  He felt that especially during war and tragedy, the arts were important in a civilized society.  Not here, not in America.  We are cutting the arts, seeing it as unnecessary.  Schools and communities no longer see the arts as important in U.S. communities.  You --yes, YOU-- should muster all the resources in time and talent that you have to turn the tide of anti-intellectualism that has swept the U.S.  YOU must do what you can to save our culture, our society, our children from the ignorant, Neanderthal attack on the arts.  We never seem to run out of money for our military might, but we are now scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to funding for the arts.  With this way of thinking, our culture will not survive.

Whether it is as a parent, sibling, teacher, friend, neighbor, community leader, or whatever, you must see to it that our children are exposed to the great cultural expressions...Michelangelo, da Vinci, Homer, Chaucer, the Psalms, Confucious, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Pasternak, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Sandburg, Frank Lloyd Wright, Tennyson, Thoreau, Jefferson, Goethe, Whitman, Lincoln, Longfellow, Mann, ......the list goes on and on.  We owe it to our children to expose them to the great works of our cultural heritage.

"Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood." -Marie Curie

With the obvious need for health care facing us, why would people lie to prevent it?  Under the current, heavily flawed system, it will bankrupt the U.S., and with poorer results than in nations with universal health care.  We spend much, much more than the industrialized nations who have better health care outcomes.  How and why would people lie, cheat, give out misinformation, connive, scheme, distort, scare, shout, confuse, and use all sorts of thuggery to prevent health care reform from happening?

Right-wing groups have said that the AARP opposes health care reform.  That is blatantly a lie.  The AARP is spending money in the media  to promote health care reform and criticize those who use lies and scare tactics to prevent reform from happening.  Is it just the highly-paid lobbying of the insurance companies?  That accounts for some of it.  But it is somewhat understandable inasmuch as these insurance companies have been bilking the public and playing a shell game with coverage to garner immense profits.  But there is more to this story of disception.

Political groups from the right-wing are fomenting hatred and lies to prevent reform from happening.  What is their agenda?  Why would they do whatever they can to damage the U.S. and its citizenry?  Let's be clear, this is not simply coming from Republicans.  It is coming from an extreme right-wing group that feels more comfortable in the Republican camp but do not in any way represent the higher and nobler standards of traditional conservatives.  Who are these people?  They fall generally into several groupings.

You have the bigots, the outright demonic people who cannot stand it that an African American now occupies the White House.  Should we take them seriously even though they represent a lunatic fringe?  Absolutely!  Compare it to the hatred of the Jews that was fostered by the Nazi element in Germany.  They were seen as a lunatic fringe, until they shouted down and disrupted all democratic debate and strong-armed their way to overthrowing the Weimar Republic.  It is noteworthy that these current right-wingers indulge in calling Obama a Nazi.  Wow, do they have their Nazi-Communism diagram distorted!

Then you have an element with a psychological problem.  They latch onto movements that offer them a semblence of importance.  Often their own lives are in disarray, perhaps economically, perhaps they are social outcasts, parental abuse when they were children,  perhaps they experienced a marriage debacle, etc.  Think of serial killers, Timothy McVeigh, James Jones, etc.  They take a movement that expresses some discontent and they distort it, exaggerate it, see shadows everywhere, bring in religion often, follow messiahs, want a vehicle to express their distorted place in society, ad infinitum.

Then there are people who see themselves vulnerable.  The sick, the elderly, etc.  They can be easily  manipulated to express their fears when change is considered.  Fear rules their lives.

Then there are those who benefit from the current unfair system.  Drug companies, huge hospital conglomerates and health care systems, insurance companies, some physicians, some university research professors, etc.

And then there are the more mainstream Republicans and some Democrats.  All the shouting scares them, and they are in fear that they will lose the next election if they don't fight health care reform.  They are looking for a patchwork system that will be seen as "acceptable" by the above loud groupings.  And many of these politicians are being bought by lobbying groups representing the profit-driven health care industry. 

Then there are those who are simply confused and overwhelmed by what they hear and see.  It is no wonder that they are confused.  Listen to Rush Limbaugh and the scare tactics of the right-wing broadcasters.  They scare me also, but for a different reason.

Tom Barrett, Mayor of Milwaukee, is a decent man.  He is a good family man.  He is an honest man.  Tom Barrett loves the city he serves.

Over this past weekend, while leaving the Wisconsin State Fair with family and friends, he confronted a man threatening a grandmother and her one-year-old grandchild.  The man beat Mayor Barrett with a metal pipe.  The Mayor was seriously injured and hospitalized.

Acting as a responsible citizen is typical of Tom.  Protecting a grandmother and grandchild is typical of Tom. 

Some years ago, I met with U.S. Congressman Adam Wheat in Kansas City about serving on his staff.  This led me indirectly to meet then Congressman Tom Barrett.  Adam and Tom were two of the most honorable men serving in Washington and they admired each other.

Later, I worked in Washington myself, but not in the field of politics, but in the field of jazz music.  However I got to know plenty about the inside story of Washington.  Tom Barrett was a clean, honest Congressman.

Now Tom is a big city mayor, perhaps the toughest job in American politics.  Naturally I agree and I disagree with actions and proposals made my Mayor Barrett.  But my hope and wish for him now has nothing to do with politics.  I simply want to see a good man make a full recovery from this brutal attack.

.....and perhaps make a run for Wisconsin governor.  8=)

Over 30 years ago I moved away from Wisconsin.  When I left the state I thought that our governors were about average for U.S. states.  After a few years,  I was watching TV in Kansas City and saw an interview with the Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson.  I was absolutely shocked.  I thought to myself, "Wow, the people of Wisconsin have made a terrrible mistake in electing this guy.  He is a buffoon at best."  I sure was wrong,  He was re-elected.  Now having moved back to Wisconsin, I still cannot understand why that guy was ever elected to anything.  He is an embarrassment to this state.

Perhaps it was Thompson's drinking.  Perhaps it was his womanizing.  And with the revelations coming out about other state governors, especially Republicans like Thompson, perhaps my opinion of governors was too high from the beginning.

In any case, the two  Wisconsin governors since then have not offered much improvement.  Do I have to mention Scott McCallum to prove anything?  And I have been very disappointed with the current governor, Doyle.   And Scott Walker and Mark Neumann announcing that they will run may even be a step backward.  Walker, when serving in the state legislature, did everything he could to deny the city of Milwaukee anything.  And Neumann blatantly said in a prior election that he would never knowingly hire a gay person.  Walker further wanted to give just about everything publicly owned over to private operators as Milwaukee County Executive.   And Neumann's comments have not given any indication that his bigotry has lessened.

The Democratic Party nationally and statewide has blundered its sweeping election success in 2008, and has been timid, stupid, and given over to responding to lobbying groups and not the people.  While the Republicans have always been lackies for big business buying their votes, the Democrats have been shamefully inadequate in representing the people who sent all politicians a message in 2008.  Democrats have been deaf and blind not to realize that message.   Both parties act as though their election and/or re-election is solely dependent on getting money from power groups, pressure groups, and business favoritism.   Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold have been elected and re-elected carrying a progressive agenda.  Unfortunately Wellstone of Minnesota died in a plane crash.  But the biggest offices in the state and nation are available to progressive politicians if they are true to the people.

It is time for Wisconsin voters to demand a higher quality person to fill the office of governor.  We cannot settle for a dunce or a puppet for power groupings.

Faced with a horrendous legacy of the George W. Bush years, President Barack Obama has done a remarkable job of righting the ship in many ways.  He appears to have turned around the financial abyss that Bush left him.  He is hastening the exit from our illegal war in Iraq.  He is trying to overcome the myriad mistakes that Bush made early in the war in Afghanistan when defeating the terrorists was a real possibility, as was capturing bin Laden in Torah Borah.  And he certainly has regained respect for the U.S. and re-built trust among the world's nations.

However he never should have allowed Congress to take the initial steps in health care reform.  He should have laid out a reform plan and presented it to the Congressional leadership.  Instead, every screwball in America has weighed in from the beginning with crackpot ideas, lies, lies, lies, distortion, ridiculous proposals, and all this wasted time has now seen a hodge-podge of legislation proposals that has confused everybody.  The Republicans were determined to defeat ANY health care reform proposals that the Democrats introduced.  It is a shell game being played by the right-wing.  No matter how conciliatory the reform is proposed, the Republicans will simply move the goal posts.

In a somewhat lesser vein, the President, through his Surgeon-General, should have laid out a plan of action early for this school year concerning the swine flu epidemic that will probably hit the U.S.  Instead, we hear from several federal departments, a wide spectrum of suggestions from private physicians, academics, etc. about what to do.  The program regarding swine flu is rudderless.  The President takes some blame for not having his Surgeon-General out front on this.  Now, finally, the Surgeon-General has chimed in with some "leadership."

Health care reform is absolutely necessary.  The poor and lower middle class will not be the only ones unable to afford health insurance.  Slowly it will effect everyone but the very rich.  President Obama and the Democratic members of Congress must now begin to act.  The spinelessness and timidity of Congressional members cannot be tolerated any longer.  Even the most recent polls indicate that the American people want change in the health care system and they want it sooner than later.  The last election's results laid claim to the people wanting action and not kow-towing to big money and right-wing negativism.  Democrats: stand up and get the health care reform necessary.  And don't water it down to please some right-wingers.  The Republicans have determined that they will defeat health care reform, no matter what way it is presented.  Leave the door open for bipartisanship, but for goodness sake, ACT!

The ball is now in the court of the Democrats and the President.  Don't wimp out on us.

Hundreds of years ago, Jews began to migrate into Europe.  They found prejudice and bigotry everywhere.  To survive, they found a kink in the armor of all these "proper" Christian Europeans.  Their Christian puritanical streak would not allow them to loan money at a profit or interest.  Christian principles had nothing to do with it, it was a way for the rich to remain with their riches and for the poor to stay poor.  The Jews, who had no such double-standards and hypocrisy in the matter, found that they could make a living by giving out loans at a rate of interest.  Thus evolved the Jewish businessman.  The hypocritical Christians never fully forgave them for "taking advantage" of the hypocrisy, and bigotry fluorished through pogroms and other atrocities aimed at Jews.  The Holocaust was the culmination of "Christian" retribution against the Jews for being less hypocritical and making a profit from it. 

This European hypocrisy naturally found its way to the new United States of America.  American founders wrote lofty ideals into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  However these neat sounding ideals did not translate to blacks, Chinese, Hispanics, or women.  From Day One, the United States of America has lived a lie.  Minorities, including gays, have had to fight hard for their rights.  Yet the Constitution was supposed to protect the rights of minorities.  Tell that to the "Real Americans" who think otherwise, and pass judgment on minorities of various stripes, including our current President.  To read American history is to read the history of a nation whose struggles have been dominated by bigotry, hatred, attempts at exclusion, violence against minorities, racism, sexism, ageism, ad infinitum.  Pick up an American history textbook and see it boldly dominating.

Make no mistake about it, the current health care reform "debate" has a great deal of the negative foundation in the ingrained bigotry and class warfare of the past in the U.S.  The modus operendi of the opponents of health care reform think nothing of broadcasting outrageous lies and distortions.  And many do it in the name of their Christianity.  Ask yourself, what would Jesus do?  Do you think that the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the New Testament would approve of 50 million uninsured Americans, another 50 million underinsured, of insurance companies refusing to cover many illnesses, of the atrocious profits being made on the backs of the sick, of the lies being announced, about the absolute insensitivity to people in need?  Is this the Jesus of the Book?

As a patriotic American, I am pleased to give you a quote from one of our Founding Fathers, and I ask you to reflect on it as you evaluate the needs of ALL people residing in the United States:

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion." -John Adams.  That quote gives me some hope.

To those who want to focus the life of Edward Kennedy on one incident in his life for which he should forever have been ashamed, I ask you to simply notice the avalanche of accoldades coming from the conservative leaders, past and present.  Note what is being stated clearly by Nancy Reagan, by politicians of the right-wing with names like Hatch, Romney, etc.  And from more moderate Republicans like John McCain.  Note especially how Teddy was able to work with those across the aisle to pass over 300 bills that bear his name and are now law.  Note how he was able to work with President George W. Bush to pass educational legislation.

If some  right-wingers still insist in Ted Kennedy's recent death to overlook the favorable comments by their supposed right-wing brothers and sisters, it requires those from the left to work at subduing their comments about the tsunami of right-wing adulterers, immoral people, smarmy actions which are far more common among conservative politicians. 

It is a time to put that mud-slinging aside and celebrate the legislation of a noted Senator from Massachusetts.  Remember always how he fought for the poor, the forgotten, the underserved.  How he was able to reach across to conservatives to forge legislation that moved things forward.  It is impossible to overlook all the progress that took place in the political and public life of U.S. Senator Teddy Kennedy.

We could use more politicians who can deliver legislation through cooperation with those whose political perspective is different from their own.

Far too many Americans think the group of early leaders in the founding of the United States of America were devout Christians.  And the same Americans who believe this place all kinds of denominational or specific Christian interpretations on these guys.  While they each held to the various flavors of religion, many were very bigoted and judgmental of others as they are today.   It is impossible to make statements about their all being Christians and coming anything close to the truth.  At best, regarding religion, many were Deists.  Some were atheists.  Some were Quakers.  And just as today, the silly list of beliefs goes on.  Here are some quotes from the early American leaders;  judge for yourself...

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith." -Thomas Jefferson

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion." -John Adams

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian religion." -Thomas Paine

"...this loathsome combination of Church and State." -Thomas Jefferson

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God.  It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." -Thomas Paine

Religious mumbo jumbo of every so-called Faith is loaded with hypocrisy and often with violence against  others, even in their own camp.  Think of the Hundred Years War, think of the Inquisition, think of the horribly violent and bigoted Crusades, think of the Holocaust, think of how American Indians were annihilated, think of our treatment of gays, think of clergy rape of youngsters,  think how long we held people in slavery, think of how we denied women their rights, think of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, think of lynchings, think of the Ku Klux Klan and McCarthyism and the John Birch Society, think of the U.S. invading innocent sovereign nations, think of what we stole from Mexico, think of our denying health care to poor and sick people, think of the U.S. torturing prisoners, ......for goodness sake, THINK!

Why is it so difficult to have us, as a nation, act as though we truly followed the peace-loving Jesus of Nazareth?  He taught us about society's outsiders, the prostitute, the disabled, the Good Samaritan.  Why then is it so damned difficult for us to help others?  Why has greed overtaken our values?  Where in the world are our values?

"There is a destiny that makes us brothers, none goes his way alone./ All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own." -Edwin Markham

"But I say to you that anyone who is angry with his brother must stand his trial; anyone who contemptously calls his brother a fool must face the supreme court; and anyone who looks down on his brother as a lost soul is himself heading straight for the fire of destruction." -as quoted of Jesus in the 5th chapter of Matthew, scholar J.B. Phillips translation 

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