My prediction was wrong, in part

©Bill Gnade/2005

OK. So I am not prescient. A week has passed and I did not receive, at least in this weekly news cycle, a single rebuttal regarding my claims that the religious left is bent on creating its own theocracy in America (see The Religious Left Is No Less Threatening posted below). Particularly, my expectation that Unitarian Universalists (UUs) and its association (UUA) would assault me in defense of their unarguable intrusion into politics has not come to pass. But I am bold to say: the silence is deafening.

Before the reader concludes that I am claiming an undue influence on local affairs, perhaps an explanation is in order. The regional Unitarian society in southern NH is large, vociferous, reactionary, and aggressive. There is no want of political activism in the hearts of this bunch, nor is there any lack of stridency. Thus, when I suggest that this group's silence is deafening, I do so believing that its silence is politically deliberate. There is no doubt the Unitarians saw and read my commentary. They hardly miss a trick. Besides, the editor of the paper which printed my letter is a Unitarian, as is her family.

What do we know about the separation of Church and State? I, at least, know that it is not possible. Religion and politics are inextricably entwined. There will never be, nor can there ever be, a secular state.

But let us assume that there is a possibility of secularism. Let us further stipulate that the religious right is jamming Christian theocratic polity down America's throat. And let us stipulate, for sheer fun, that the Democrats are here to protect us from theocracy, as they so unflinchingly claim.

Hear what the head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, had to say about the wonderful secular tent under which he presides:

"We need to talk about Christian values and how they're Democratic values. Jesus taught to help the least among us. He spent his life reaching out to the disenfranchised. The Democratic Party is the party of that value, not the Republican Party."

OK. So here we have the head of the DNC not only quoting Jesus, but telling us that it is the DNC, the alleged protectors of secularism, who are the true followers of Christ; and that Jesus' values are identical to the DNC's.

I implore anyone, anywhere, to find an analogous leader in the Republican National Committee that has spoken so theocratically.

Right after the 2004 General Election, members of the Democratic Party were citing New Testament passages in radio and TV appearances. Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Al Sharpton, John Kerry, Jesse Jackson - each of them quoted scripture, and how that sacred writ was most obediently followed by their holy party.

Unitarians, interestingly enough, almost called for a national day of mourning after Bush won the election. In fact, the UUA president William Sinkford insisted that his fellow UUs allow themselves only eight days to mourn before getting on with life.

Locally, the Peterborough (NH) Unitarian Society posted on its wayside pulpit (the sign in front of a church) for its traditional Election Day sermon: "Post-Election Healing." That this sort of sackcloth and ashes mentality swept through the entire UUA community is indisputable, thus proving that the grief in that community was one of discovering that the UUs' hope for a liberal religious state had once again been thwarted.

Why the silence to my charges? Simple. It is politically expedient to the UUs not to draw attention to their hypocrisy. And, again, what is that hypocrisy? It is this: That the Unitarian Universalist Association and its member congregations are a Church committed to the religious ideal that religion should be separate from politics. That this irrationality is not highlighted more frequently in the media is startling and telling. It is the one of the most intellectually self-cancelling beliefs imaginable, and yet it is touted as sophisticated, nuanced and progressive.

In short, it is just plain dumb.

Contratimes

The trees from the forest (Thoughts on the Iraq War, part II)

It might seem far-fetched to suggest that one can learn anything about the Iraq War from New Hampshire forests but, I beg you, trust me when I say there is a very helpful lesson in our northern woodlands. At least there's something to learn from the loggers who drop off firewood in our yards each year.

Recall, first, that the Iraq War was not about weapons of mass destruction, or about imminent terror threats. The war was and continues to be about eradicating a regime, a particularly tyrannical one, from the Mid-East political calculus. No one believes that had WMDs been found in abundance, and then confiscated, US soldiers would have immediately returned home. Nay, the war since its inception has been about removing a particularly loathsome regime, defiant to the last (a defiance that could only embolden others of the same ilk), regardless of whether one agrees with that fact or not.

How, pray tell, can loggers teach us anything about war; about insurgency and the difficulty of changing a regime? They can teach us merely by describing the difference between clear-cutting and selective-cutting.

Clear-cutting, the easiest, most aggressive and safest form of logging merely requires equipment, manpower and energy to sweep through a forested plot to lay the land to waste. Analogically speaking, clear-cutting is to forestry what the bombing of Dresden or the atomic fires of Hiroshima are to warfare. A shock-and-awe campaign of sweeping devastation against a distinct enemy is the strategic equivalent of clear-cutting.

Selective-cutting attempts to remove a predetermined species of tree from a diverse forest. Removing oaks, for example, from a forest of deciduous and coniferous trees is to be selective. Moreover, selective-cutting, an oft used method for harvesting the best firewood, is fraught with difficulty and hazard. Felling and removing giant trees through and around other trees without damaging oneself or the surrounding plants is timely, costly, difficult. Just ask a logger.

The Iraq War, then, is the task of selectively cutting from a people the villainous without harming the harmless. It’s like trying to remove every vestige of an oak - be it a sapling or acorn - without disturbing the surrounding landscape.

Imagine, now, if you will, what it would be like for loggers, even those with the best training and grandest gear, to enter a woodland where the oaks not only move and hide, the oaks wield guns. Imagine if the oaks sometimes dressed like birches or pines; and even, in some cases, dressed like loggers. How long would it take to get the job done? Could it be done without damaging neighboring trees; or claiming loggers’ lives? How so, if such oaks move and plant themselves in the midst of poplars, and then blow themselves up; if oaks from other forests come to replace those hewn down; if even the oaks carry chainsaws?

Sound difficult, or time-consuming? Just ask a soldier.

Those who have ceaselessly complained about the difficulty of the Iraq War, using that difficulty as proof of failed American policy, have not for one second understood what the US military has attempted to do: It has attempted to rid the forest of harmful growth without hurting that which is beneficial (imagine removing all the weeds from a long-neglected garden; or cancerous cells from healthy). Those who proclaim “Quagmire! Disaster!” have not spent one minute selectively cutting their own woodlots. And the most hawkish among us who decry US strategy for not being one of clear-cutting violence, must recall that there were survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clear-cut Baghdad with a nuke and Saddam Hussein may still rule Babylon. To clear out a regime, the fighting must be detailed and methodical, excising every stem, root and seed of that regime. After all, it was selective-cutting that captured Hussein, guaranteeing the inevitability of complete regime change. Dangerous, yes, but more exact than a well-aimed cruise missile.

In short, the US has been conducting a humane war, cautious to a fault, against an invisible enemy that has no sense of neutrality; an enemy that attacks anyone, anywhere. And with a new democratically-elected Cabinet formed in Iraq today (though arguably an imperfect Cabinet) one can only conclude that the job of America’s armed forces has been remarkably well-done. It might be slower and more costly than what some may desire. That's the price of selective regime change. But what is the alternative? Withdrawal? To do that would guarantee the return of tyranny; and it would be a bitter defeat of all Americans.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

When armor is a liability (Thoughts on the Iraq War, Part I)

[updated May 3, 2005]

(Monday's New York Times [4/25] reported that a particular U.S. Marine unit in Iraq had suffered heavy losses. Much of the loss was blamed on poorly armored Humvees. The reader will recall, too, that late last year Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was questioned by a soldier about insufficiently armored vehicles. Today, as last year, the media point a finger at the alleged failings of the Defense Department and the Bush Administration to adequately protect soldiers in harm's way. And Sunday's [5/1] NYT editorial rebuked the DOD for failing to adequately protect soldiers in the field.)

[updated November 24, 2006]

(As predicted here in this essay, American soldiers are indeed experiencing difficulties with military vehicles retro-fitted with armor. The vehicles were never designed to carry such weight.)

When I worked as a photojournalist, I would occasionally hear this sort of remark at the scene of a gruesome car accident: "Had they been going slower, the injuries would not have been so severe." Or, in the case of a collision that was newsworthy despite the fact no one was hurt, one might hear: "Had they been going faster, they would not have been so lucky."

That these two comments -- both on the surface oozing with common sense though utterly inane  -- proves the point that most people who speak thusly are simply not thinking. For if two cars were indeed traveling faster, then they would have been in different spaces at different times, and thus would not have collided at all. There would be no injuries; and there would be no news. The truly common sense thing would be to say, "If only they had been going faster this crash would not have happened." For that is accurate.

The same goes for cars traveling slower. Two drivers chugging along the same road would not ever hit each other at point A if they have not yet reached point A; nor will they ever reach it simultaneously.

Of course, we know what people MEAN by these inane statements. They MEAN to say that "at the point" of impact it would have been better had they been going slower. But the reality remains: If they were going slower, there would be no point of impact.

Thus highlights the very stupid observations offered by those critics of the war in Iraq who believe that armored Humvees would protect soldiers: "If only they had Kevlar window panels, these soldiers would not have died."

But let me rip somewhat irrationally on this idea for a moment. For the critics' arguments are akin to this: "If the bullet that just passed through Cpl. Smith's waist had instead hit his government-issued canteen two inches to the right of entry, he'd be alive now. How dare the Bush administration only provide one canteen to each of our servicemen, and how dare Rumsfeld require the canteen be worn in one specific spot!"

Now let me be a bit more rational. A Humvee is a heavy, rugged vehicle, with suspension, transmission and various other components designed to provide optimal all-terrain behaviors in a variety of war situations. It was NEVER designed to be an armored personnel carrier. It was designed to be relatively fast (0-60 in 45 seconds, I believe), though not nearly as fast as most Democrats' Chevy Suburbans. Moreover, it is tuned according to both its dry weight, and its weight under load.

Imagine then, what would be required if all Humvees were retrofitted in the field with armor. The vehicle would be heavier; harder to drive (vision would be obscured); it would be slower. Springs, drivetrains, gas mileage: each of these would be affected. And thus the vehicle would become a potentially GREATER danger and liability. And then THIS would be the hue and cry:

"The Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld are being criticized for their failure to protect troops with better Humvees. For ever since the Defense Department retrofitted the Humvees with armor, the vehicles have become easy targets, as they are slower, less agile, and far more difficult to drive. And now that the insurgents know that the vehicles are more fortified, larger roadside bombs have been used to destroy these much more vulnerable targets. And in some cases soldiers have been killed because the modified vehicles, now barely getting 3 miles per gallon of fuel (down from 8), have run out of gas in the midst of ambushes.

"We call for a complete overhaul of the Humvee project. That the Administration would so poorly protect our soldiers with armor that has cost more lives than it saved should anger Americans everywhere."

Thus would opine the New York Times.

Moreover, let's not forget that soldiers' behavior would change, perhaps endangering them even more, once they perceived themselves to be "protected." Safety gear often causes many a young man and woman to throw caution to the wind.

Look. Soldiers are still killed while wearing high-tech gear. Police officers are killed sometimes BECAUSE they are wearing bullet-proof vests (a small caliber round can enter through an unprotected arm hole and ricochet off the inside walls of the vest and rip up the chest cavity, a worse injury than if the officer was without a vest). If that's the case, should soldiers and officers NOT be issued this gear? Or should they be issued even MORE gear, protecting them from small arms fire, for sure, but limiting their movements, making them vulnerable to merely falling over like beetles on their backs?

Let us recall, too, that motor vehicle air bags, those great safety innovations with such promise, sometimes kill people, as do seatbelts. Sometimes the only person to survive a car wreck is that person ejected from a tumbling vehicle due to having not worn a safety restraint.

The fact remains that bad things happen in war, particularly the kind of war which is Iraq: A war where the enemy wears no uniforms, flies no flag, drives cars without insignias, and mercilessly kills any target, including itself.

Kevlar is a good thing. When and if possible, vehicles and the soldiers who operate them should be protected. But there are variables to protection and war that no war critic can either predict or remove.

You know, if only people could think a little more slowly they wouldn't smash themselves into such silly little bits.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Is this a Double Standard?

[I offer deep and abiding gratitude to David Horowitz for featuring this essay at his website, Frontpagemag.com, in April.]

By the time the 1960's came to a close, I was in fourth grade, all of nine years old. I recall that the '60s scared me: that the Black Panthers, assassinations, riots, and even the epileptic screaming of Janice Joplin simply frightened me. Having been born in the middle of a war, I found Vietnam scary as well, though the allure of combat teased not only my imagination but the backyard play-fantasies of my New Jersey playmates (till I moved to New Hampshire in 1968). And there, in second grade, in what may have been my first gesture of bravado, I recall telling classmate Timmy Tyrrell, who already was planning on being a minister (his whole family was devoted to that goal), that I wanted to grow up to be a "heroin addict," a boast I completed with a pantomime of shooting up: arm on my desk, sleeve rolled up, pencil heading deep into my vein - and Mrs. Barden nearby. I would join the rebellion, I declared, and I'll have my hair as long as Rapunzel's.

Recently I've been reliving those times, in the trenchant and matter-of-fact analysis of David Horowitz' autobiography, Radical Son. It is a revealing book, prophetic in its disclosure, giving me an anchor for my wind-tossed anxieties about a decade deemed by some "the best of times."

I share this because I am more certain than ever that the causes for my anxiety have not been rebuffed or destroyed. The radicalism that pervaded the '60s remains, with the '60s youth now in places of political and social prominence, and their children and grandchildren, each breast fed on the idealized protestations of their '60s progenitors, now seeking their own Age of Aquarius. Horowitz reminds me of this, and though I am intellectually mature enough to rein in my emotion (most of the time), anxiety still wakes the soul at night. They are here.

They of course, are those who cannot and will not permit dissent from the party line that a "redemptive future", as Horowitz puts it, is possible; a future without poverty, inequality or any perceived injustice. This future is about emancipating humanity from the fears imposed by the Church; about liberating people from the incorporated capitalist greed bent on creating an unquenchable thirst in consumers; about tossing off the common sense shackles of sexual and artistic prudence.

Go back with me, for a moment, and relive the 1960s' radical beliefs about revolution in America. For example, relive the revolutionary conviction that criminals, particularly black ones, were really acting as liberators; that they were merely acting out as repressed people against an oppressive "system"; against "the Man." Recall that the Black Panthers were not merely victims, but liberators, fighting with clenched fist the classism and injustices of a tyrannical white enterprise. The Weather Underground, violent and aggressive; the property-smashing protesters in American university towns; even the Vietnamese communists exterminating the Party's transgressors; each of these received the compassion, mercy, even the all-out support, of American leftists from coast to coast. For these eruptive and confrontational movements, unavoidable according to Marxist-Hegelian theory, were allegedly symptomatic of a repressive, soon-to-die capitalist colossus.

So Horowitz tells in truly chilling detail and - with what cannot be described in any other phrase - he tells with nothing short of bravery. For Horowitz himself was a revolutionary, born into an American family of strident and organized Communists. But after decades of mounting a truly impressive assault on America with revolutionary zeal, Horowitz saw his ideals crumble into the realities of the gulags of the Soviet Union, and the failed socialist economies everywhere Marx was embraced.

Perhaps the single most important line in Horowitz' work is this, which he describes as the subtext for defending the left's moral failures: "No matter how bad my actions seem, my heart is in the right place." This defense, Horowitz argues, was deployed by leftists everywhere as they were confronted by the violent, murderous realities their actions and ideas supported.

It is an important line to remember.

THEY ARE HERE

Sunday, April 24, 2005, in typical fashion, Frank Rich of the New York Times writes of House Speaker Tom Delay that (and I quote Mr. Rich), "It's a lie to argue, as Tom DeLay did last week, that such a judiciary is the 'left's last legislative body.'" One wonders what Mr. Rich means. It is never a "lie" to argue, no matter how one argues. It is a lie to deliberately tell a mistruth. Arguing is not lying. Lying is lying.

Here's Tom Delay's full remark: "And of course, the leftists hate it when we attack the left's last legislative body." That Delay is referring to the judiciary is inescapable. But that it is a lie is hardly accurate; nor is it an argument, as Rich wrongly suggests. If anything, it looks like an incontrovertible truth: it is transparent that the left indeed does hate it when Delay (and others of his ilk) attacks the judiciary. Just look at how the leftist media have reacted to his remarks. They've aimed their guns at him. He's a "liar."

I share this small item for a very important reason. It reveals that the left, embodied by Mr. Rich, is blind to its double standard.

That double standard is this: The left rarely, if ever, inquires why the right, particularly the religious right, is so disenchanted with "the system." Moreover, the right is never offered the rather easy out granted to the left: Tom Delay, for example, will never be acquitted for his 'lies' with the merciful "we disagree with Mr. Delay's actions and words, but his heart is in the right place."

No, Rich never inquires, and I believe he has never inquired, why Delay and his colleagues feel so outraged by the US judiciary. Or why conservatives feel "oppressed"; or why radical opponents of abortion (the few that exist) have taken up arms and shot abortion doctors. Are conservatives' hearts in the right place? Never!

That Mr. Rich (and virtually every leftist pundit in this country) has never granted such tolerant understanding of the right indicates the clear line of demarcation between the two political wings. Leftist writers are much more willing to discern the heart of Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein than the person seated next to them on the train (unless that person be a member of MoveOn.org).

In Radical Son, Horowitz spells it out plainly for all to see. He recounts how the leftist media reacted to his defection from the left: with an onslaught of lies, vitriol and scorn. And he recalls how Garry Wills, protegé of right-wing William F. Buckley, was treated by the right when he defected for the left: He was treated like a human being deserved to be treated, with respect.

Horowitz also makes the claim that pundits of the left are expert in writing, not brilliant arguments, but brilliant indictments. Frank Rich's piece on Sunday, like most of his work, proves Horowitz' point. But Horowitz makes a more chilling claim, and I quote:

"Lenin said that the object of political debate was not to win a debate but to wipe one's opponent from the face of the earth."

Apparently Lenin and his distant relatives don't give a damn about whether one's heart is in the right place.

It's that sort of "understanding" of the revolutionary spirit that keeps me up at night.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

BOMBS, or listening to NPR. I can’t tell. But it’s all about Point of View (a poem)

What is the distance between your eyes and your ears?
You can’t believe what you see but you know what you heard
from your desk in the computer lab, just off the cafeteria.

Someone said he thought it might be a sonic boom (all
booms are) and you swore you saw blood splatter on the broken
wire-window of the door your best friend just passed through.

Then, slow motion commotion in the little nation surrounded
confounded by bloodlust hate bombing everything in sight
welcome to the universe and the university

limbs, hands, fingers, lips, eyes, teeth, bits of recently connected
tissue pushed about. This is what it really means to celebrate
diversity. Only hate prefers this to the unity of an overarching
truth.

What is the distance between her head and the rest of her?
You step over puddled hemoglobin, stunned by the shape
an ideology can take, and you pick up something that doesn't
belong to you.

You make it through the rescue, the recovery, the search for
more weapons of body mass deconstructionism in postmodernity's
medieval nightmare, and you tell the radio correspondent that you’ve lost
your hearing, and you think you have lost most if not all of your
best friend

Hamas takes credit for this bold military strategy of delimbing

Jesse Jackson cancels his speaking engagement with the holy man
responsible for the spiritual nourishment of those who mix
C4 for teenage chests, of those who steal airplanes and offer
lesser worlds

And Imus mutters that this is insane, just all insane, wishing
Jesse would come to terms with his monumental embarrassment
NPR tries to find the sanity in both sides of the story
doing everything but a gestalt switch from Point of View to Point of View;
of course, everybody's right, if you just think about it in
a sort of prefabricated, modular way.

There is act, and reaction. And reaction follows the first reaction
the third follows the second, and so on, until it is all over
reaction

Then large chests heave that "We have got to get both parties to the table."
"We have got to remove blocks to the peace process."
(Yes. City blocks and concrete blocks shoved by bulldozers
or explosive moments like today's.)
"Hopefully both sides will learn from what has happened
here, and take the necessary steps to ensure that it
won’t happen again."

Didn't you say that yesterday 30 years ago?

(I smell the blood of students) shed in retaliation, or so the
Palestinians claim, for the execution of their leader.

While someone covered in prayer shawls and holy script
finds a divine reason for intervening in the rhythm of human hearts
as old Bedouin scraping flesh from walls like the remains of
van Gogh's gooey brush strokes
beg a simple question:

Where's God when you need one?

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

The religious left is no less threatening (A preface)

[A note of explanation: The following post is a letter to the editor I sent to the Peterborough Transcript, published in the town adjacent to mine in southwestern New Hampshire. I submit my letter to this blog for two reasons. First, I think it has merit; and second, I want to make a public prediction: The response to my letter will be swift and passionate, replete with ad hominem fallacies. I do not expect anything resembling a counter-argument (is there one?). But I do expect to be pilloried.

In my letter, I cite an earlier letter by Taylor Morris of Peterborough, NH. Mr. Morris, an author of sorts, is a retired professor of English Literature and a liberal activist. He counts Howard Zinn among his friends. I also cite a lecture by the (in)famous 'gay' bishop of the NH diocese of the Episcopal Church, Gene Robinson. Robinson recently spoke at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, NH. His lecture was titled, "What in God's name is going on in America?"

Some of the readers of Contratimes will recognize that part of my letter is a rewrite of "God bless you please, Mr. Robinson." That commentary is posted below.]

Contratimes

The religious left is no less threatening (A letter to the editor)

[This essay is a letter sent to the editor of the Peterborough Transcript, a small NH weekly. It is in response to comments made retired Franklin Pierce College professor, author and political activist Taylor Morris, who lives nearby. It is related to my "God Bless You Please, Mr. Robinson."]

Criticisms of the religious right, expressed in sundry letters to local papers and the audacious remarks of Bishop Gene Robinson of the NH diocese of the Episcopal Church, strike me as wildly hypocritical at worst and misinformed at best.

Taylor Morris, for instance, in his letter, How to define freedom? (Transcript, 4/14), fails to even consider that there might be a religious left equally bent on establishing a theocracy in America. Imposing religious ideals and principles in the public square is hardly a right-wing activity. The religious left has been doing it for decades.

One need only glance at Unitarian Universalism to rightly conclude that there is hardly a more strident and politically active religious institution in America. Its involvement in shaping society and politics in its own religious image is not only part of its foundation; it is its pride. If the religious right is against gay marriage, for example, the Unitarians are all for it. In other words, the legalization of gay marriage by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was a decision that promoted and affirmed the religious ideals of Unitarians everywhere. In fact, the two ministers who performed the first 'marriages' in New Paltz, NY, marriages now deemed illegal, were Unitarian ministers. Does anyone think that those two ministers performed those ceremonies because their church opposes gay marriage?

Moreover, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is nearly monochromatic in its political views. Find a Unitarian Universalist who is a conservative Republican, and I say you've found a miracle. (In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church, at least politically, is infinitely more diverse than nearly any Unitarian society on the planet.) The UUA in America endorses almost every political position held by the Democratic Party; and it rarely, if ever, supports one ideal that could be found to the right of that party.

Remember that the "religious right" is not a church. Unitarian Universalism, however, is very much a church.

Mr. Robinson's recent remarks at Franklin Pierce College, germane to this discussion in their hypocrisy, no doubt received applause by his liberal peers. But is there a more troubling irony than a man using his religious office politically in order to censure religion in politics?

And is it not hypocritical that Mr. Robinson would sow fears of theocracy by claiming that 'God is horrified' (Robinson's words) by the things being done in God's name by the religious right? For Robinson claims to know God's mind, a claim that should sound alarms in liberals the world over: Robinson assumes he not only knows what horrifies God politically; he knows what doesn’t horrify God. And what doesn't horrify God? Apparently the political views of Mr. Robinson, whose views are unsurprisingly identical to the Democratic Party platform.

Lastly, one wonders how Mr. Robinson can use his religion in politics to beat back religion in politics when the Book of Common Prayer, without flinching, expects fervent prayers in which weekly, if not daily, Episcopalians petition their Lord Jesus Christ to guide the 'President, Congress and Judiciary' so that they will perform, not some secular act, but God's very will. Perhaps Mr. Robinson would have me skip over that part of my Prayer Book.

The theocratic ambition of the left is also a real threat to the separation of church and state. Messrs. Robinson and Morris apparently hope to protect that separation. I pray they will.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved

Technorati tags: Religious Left, Religious Right, Gene Robinson, Episcopal Church, Episcopalianism,ECUSA, Unitarianism, Unitarian-Universalism

Some Americans just don't get it

This morning's New York Times once again reveals the ignorance, or, at best, the intentional neglect, of the facts of Catholicism by those who would write about that sacred faith.

In "Pope May Color Debate in U.S. Over 'Life' Issues Like Abortion", writer Robin Toner (one dare not call her a reporter), leads with this inscrutable remark:

"The election of an unstintingly conservative pope could inject a powerful new force into the intense conflicts in American politics over abortion and other social issues, which put many Catholic elected officials at odds with their church."

That the Holy Father is described as "unstintingly conservative" is like calling the New York Yankees "unswerving in being a baseball team". In other words, it's tautological. It's surprising that it wasn't reported that the papal conclave had elected a Holy Father that was "unstintingly male"; or that the College of Cardinals had foisted upon the waiting world a Pope who was "surprisingly Catholic."

Latent in the writer's commentary is a fundamentalist liberal (dare I say, American) notion that someday the Catholic Church could have a progressive Pope - a liberal Papa - who, in fact, could so transform the backward Church that maybe, in the not-too-distant future, the world could applaud the election of a female Pope (commonly known as a "Mope", I believe).

That the NYT writer implies that the Church could have elected a Pope other than an "unstinting conservative" reveals that far too many people view the Church's rôle as entirely human (lacking any divine inspiration or guidance); democratic and politically malleable, bending with the currents of modernity.

Moreover, that one of my belovéd family members should grieve that Pope Benedict XVI is in the "same vein" as John Paul II, indicates that even Catholics - American Catholics - fail to understand that ALL Popes are to be in the same vein. There is no "zeitgeist pope"; there is no Pope for today, another for tomorrow. Each Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the earthly stand-in for the Divine Savior of the world, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That outsiders to the Faith particularly should chide the Church for being nothing other than itself - a bulwark against the whims of a capricious humanity - should remind us, not of the inflexibility of the Church, but of the instability of its critics.

(In other news, kudos to NYT columnist David Brooks for his astute commentary regarding Roe v. Wade. "Trenchant" comes to mind when considering his analysis.)

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Pope Benedict XVI, Catholic Church, David Brooks, New York Times

The excoriation begins

Less than 24 hours after Benedict XVI's election to the Holy See, critics began to strip him of his skin. Whether it be the life-long Catholic who served me lunch yesterday, or members of my family, or Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Pope Benedict is not really God's man for the job. He's more likely the devil's.

Representative of this are comments by the likes of Boston's Mike Barnicle, who yesterday during his radio talk show chided the Church for lacking the "transparency" of an American election. This morning on Imus in the Morning, Tim Russert suggested that American Catholics wanted a Pope that would preach the "gospel as presented in the Sermon on the Mount", emphasizing the care of the poor and one's neighbors; and not a Pope like Benedict, who's caught up in divisive issues, "like abortion", and homosexuality. And Maureen Dowd (it's hard to believe she's won the Pulitzer Prize) implies this morning in her column that Benedict is little more than the Inquistion with new letterhead.

That Barnicle (and most Americans) miss the paradox of freedom is understandable, largely because Americans have come to view democracy in profoundly stupid terms. The paradox, of course, is that for freedom to thrive, there must be things that are not free; there must be darkness if we want transparency. For example, if the Oval Office in the White House was to be truly open to the people, one would discover quite quickly that America was no longer open to anyone. Similarly, if the Constitution were a transparent and elastic document, open to the revision of all truly free people who claim to have a voice in such matters, Americans would awake tomorrow morning to a world where the Constitution suddenly turned invisible. The paradox of freedom is just that: that something must be afixed - permanently - for freedom to exist at all.

If my meaning is yet not clear, think of it this way. The only reason we have an open society is because there are some things that are not open, like the Oval Office. The moment the Oval Office becomes transparently open to all is the very same moment the open society would close, close in tyranny, chaos or both.

That Barnicle believes the Catholic Church should be as transparent as an American election reveals that he understands neither the Church nor elections. For there is secrecy at the heart of every American election. Imagine if, in the interest of the pop idols "transparency" and "full disclosure", every citizen voted under public scrutiny. That Barnicle suggests this is clear, as is the result of such "clarity": voting as we know it and the freedom voter secrecy provides would cease.

Transparency at the level that needs to be obscure breeds death to freedom.

Russert's remarks are just plain foolish, suggesting that abortion is not related to caring for either the poor or one's neighbors. He would pit those who advocate a social gospel against those, such as Benedict, who advocate a total Gospel, one that deals with the social dimensions of the world in light of the personal, moral life of each individual; a gospel that rebukes the heresies that destroy those individuals' souls and the societies such individuals create.

But Russert's remarks also reveal that the Americans to which he refers would prefer a Pope that would do what "most Americans" want for him to do, which is to submit to democracy.

And Dowd, whose work reads less like a reasoned argument and more like verbal gas pains, is simply absurd. She bemoans the fact that the Church is a heirarchy and not a democracy like the New York Times (wait a minute, the NYT is not a democracy either. Well, perhaps I misrepresent her feelings about her employer, which, come to think of it, would not be a member of the free press if everyone, from the crankpot on the loading dock to Ms. Dowd herself - each equal in Dowd's small world - had control over that press. But I digress.)

That the Church is a heirarchy angers Americans - particularly Dowd - for no other reason than that Americans believe that "anyone can make it to the the top" (although there is no top in a democracy, is there? See how confused this all gets?). What Ms. Dowd really believes is that she, and her other infallible cohorts, should be allowed to elect and create a Pope who's in their own image. It's a sort of spiritual nepotism, where one elects and supports one's ideological clone.

Of course, if there is a God at all, agnostics and theists alike must submit that equality is a myth, and that heirarchy is at the very core of Being. But that sort of reasoning is just too Papal.

Here's a fun physics question for Messrs. Barnicle, Russert and Ms. Dowd. When a car freely travels down the highway, what part of it is not free to move at all all? The answer strikes directly at the heart of the role of the Papacy.

If there is nothing fixed in human life, nothing moves in human life.

Pope Benedict XVI, particularly his office, is precisely that still point where the rubber meets the road. Without that traction, one is not free to move, skidding helter-skelter or just spinning in the same tired rut.

Watch over the coming weeks whether it is the "Papists" or the press who convene the Inquisition.

Contratimes

©2005/Bill Gnade - All Rights Reserved.

Waiting for smoke

Deep in the heart of Christendom, in the core of the Christian legacy, an old adage will once again prove true: Where there is smoke, there is fire. Soon, in fact, there will be smoke drifting over St. Peter's Square and the Sistine Chapel. The fire of the new Bishop of Rome will be kindled.

It's amazing how fascinated the media are with this conclave, held above a false floor in Michelangelo's gallery; and with the group of religious gathered therein so wholly intent on maintaining tradition that counter-espionage measures have been taken to thwart that very techno-crazy media gathered outside. Have not the last days of Pope John Paul II and this present conclave all seemed so important to the media that it would be crazy not to suggest that the newsgatherers have proven the divine importance of the Vicar of Christ? Has any vacancy and succession of any office been more analyzed; more scrutinized to the very edges of sanity? Why this fascination?

Perhaps it's because the Catholic Church has for centuries stood in the way of human excess. Oh, sure, there are those who scoff at the Church's calls for sacrifice and humility when it is adorned with gold and encrusted with gems. But only the reckless speak thus, forgetting, or ignoring, the curious fact that even in the manger, the stable of the only royal birth, there was gold, frankincense and myrhh. Jesus was and is a king, and his kingdom will have no end. Truly it's OK to manifest the glory of God with the sacraments of art and craft; of precious metals and hallowed frescoes. What else to do with such things than to point heavenward?

But the Church's longstanding resistance to "progress", that ever elusive, seemingly capricious idol; and its criticism of "traditions" that debase and oppress others; give the Church's detractors much to decry. For Rome, particularly in the last papal term, has held firm ground against the spirit of the age, whether it be the inhuman optimism of utopian socialists; or the idolatry of unfettered capitalists; or the licentiousness of the sexually maniacal West. The Church has indeed fought against the idolatries of conservatives and liberals, of heartless moralists and snickering anarchists; and it has fought well. For this reason the world watches and waits; for this reason the media obsess and wonder, and in some cases, even worry.

Doesn't it strike you as strange how many papal "experts" have crawled out from under every rock and paten on the planet? Never before have there been so many experts. Even many non-Catholics seem infallibly articulate on what John Paul II's successor must do, and what he must be like as man and pastor. In fact, every one of these voices sounds, well, infallibly papal. The question thus comes to mind: with this many experts walking the streets, who needs a pope at all (a very liberal wish, no doubt)?

That liberals pray for a liberal, conservatives for a conservative, combined with the grotesgue democratization of everything in America (where everyone is equally expert); all make a fascinating and irresistable story.

But let's skip the punditry (its own sort of idol), and let's have faith (at least those who have it) that God will use men (yes, men) to bring to Christendom another bold and bright flame that burns the skin when held too close, and yet warms the soul when held close enough.

And may the Vatican religious choose another leader who can help guide us home when we have wandered far into those cold and lonely places where our idols love to dwell.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Saturday morning coffee, politics over easy (A poem)

They speak loud enough to prove their pedantry
speaking in bold espresso terms of Bush coming before shove
into an unjust war between Iraq and a hard peace
against a man everyone calls a tyrant,
to say the least

she speaks ex cafédra that democracy works only for an educated public
but the public is no longer educated, which she says so shrewdly
the coffee cools in the decanters; and her man seconds the motion.
She no doubt is educated beneath that new age
progressive bandana all democrat and rich, rich with the verse
of the New York Times, its ink on her hands though
she has New Hampshire mud on her boots which were
assembled in live-free-or-die China
she's a swelling progress and she just knows

I lean over and tell her she should run for president.

I ask her: Is there a more tedious group than these ignoramuses
wandering our voting-booth streets,
so blithely content to read the Union Leader
or the Wall Street Journal, utterly led by the nose by kneejerk polity?
and she nods so knowingly, her eyes deep with pity
and concern for the dulluminati, those big Texas idiots swaggering
thoughtlessly through the world of the refined political idea
who trample the lofty smart bombs of prose in the center-of-the-
universe New York Times' op-eds, the command center for all
the right ways to really, really think.

I tell her how I once was ridiculed for writing a quasi-patriotic
poem, allegedly wrapped in red, white, blue, celebrating freedom in the
quiet and the noise. But the flag is only red, I tell her, with blue and
white splashed upon it. No matter how fervent, the very
peace we choose floats on that red sea, always, forever, irreversibly
We can't make the whole flag white or blue or clear or even smart
and she begins to fling her mud

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

The god of love

Permit me to announce my rejection of Christ. For if Christianity is as the United Church of Christ (UCC) suggests in its recent TV commercial, then I have no interest in being a Christian. Such religiosity is anathema to me; and I'm anathema to it.

The commercial in question - Bouncer - depicts people queueing up outside a church. Each person is subjected to a security screening by two black-garbed musclemen determining each person's legitimacy. A homosexual couple is tossed aside, as is a young, jewelry-pierced man, apparently hispanic. Also rejected is an African-American child; and even a young man in a wheelchair. Finally the screen fades to black and the words 'Jesus didn't turn people away ... Neither do we,' appear in white. Then a male voice-over: 'The United Church of Christ. No matter who you are, or where you are in life's journey, you are welcome here.' (To see the ad for yourself, go here and follow the links.)

When I first saw the UCC ad (stumbled upon while sifting through sundry TV channels), I genuinely thought it was a parody, perhaps created by The Daily Show; for the piece is that laughable and absurd. But my first impression was quickly replaced by shock when I saw the official UCC logo emblazoned on the screen, topped with these words: God is still speaking.

Yeah, sure he is.

The important point presented in the commercial is of Christ's acceptance. It is the claim that Christ accepts all people 'no matter who they are.' But one wonders what this means. If we know anything about Christ, he rebuked the self-righteous, condemned not only adultery but even lust (a very biological drive), castigated 'money changers' in the holy temple, and exorcized demons from disturbed people.

(I wonder if the UCC's Jesus demonstrated expansive tolerance with his disciple Peter. One need only recall Christ's gentle, approving words issued to that first Bishop of Rome: 'Get thee behind me, Satan.')

Yeah, Jesus just accepted everybody.

What's disgusting is that if the UCC is about openness, its doors are rather closed; closed to people who are Christian fundamentalists, or alleged homophobes, or members of the Boy Scouts. Each of these is not permitted to cross the UCC's tolerant threshold. But maybe that's unfair. A homophobe, for example, is no doubt welcome on the condition that he or she doesn't seek a position of leadership in the UCC, unless such a person changes.

(Apparently some people can and must change.)

Remember, according to the UCC, where ever you are in life's journey, you are accepted by the UCC, unless, of course, you are an unacceptable person. With compassion like that, it seems the UCC might actually keep the real Jesus out of its churches, the man who was rejected and despised for the sins of the world.

Contrary to the UCC, there has never been a church that has tossed out people before they even enter. Until now. After all, the Christian Church has always been about saving people from their sins. It's only a gross misunderstanding that the Church is the household of the whole. Rather, it's the household of the broken. So to suggest that people were banned for being sinners is absurd.

But that's not the suggestion, is it? The suggestion is that homosexuality, for example, is normal, and that homophobia is sin. But with the UCC's ban on homophobic Boy Scouts now well known, it's clear that the only church to ban sinners, for the first time in history, is the United Church of Christ.

Let's assume the UCC is right: churches are un-Christlike. But if Christ taught anything, it is the love of one's enemies. How then does the UCC's commercial demonstrate its love for those people with whom it categorically disagrees? It invokes Christ in a slick TV ad, using him to mock and rebuke the UCC's neighbors. Shame!

Give me a Christ that wants to smash the world to bits. That's a Christ worth following. For love is ferocious, if it's anything. I've no interest in a deity that is neither loving nor divine. A Christ that accepts everyone as they are is worthless.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: United Church of Christ, Bouncer Advertisement

A foolish consistency

Recently, I rode a chairlift up a mountain with a woman I hardly knew. That itself might be interesting, were I single and irresponsible but, gratefully, I confess that I am neither (well, maybe I am irresponsible, but that fact has not left me single).

Nearly the second I began my uphill journey, my chairmate launched into a criticism of President George Bush.

"The plain fact is that he is a very stupid man. And his only interest is in appeasing the big corporations who run this country," she said with the boldness of an oracle.

I held my tongue and listened as she went from one Bush weakness to the next. Then, once we disembarked at the lift's terminus, the woman switched from corporate greed to the right-to-die.

"This whole Schiavo thing is just absurd. What is this President thinking? He's obsessed with just one person, bringing the whole government to a stop because one person's on her deathbed. What about straightening out the Iraq War, or Social Security? Why does he care so much about one person when he doesn't seem to care about whole groups of hurting people, like our soldiers?"

I politely interjected that only a few weeks ago Democrats were insisting that Social Security was fine.

"Why should the president fuss over something that isn't broken?" I asked. "Or did it break a few days ago?"

She looked at me bemusedly.

"And besides," I added, "I love it that President Bush and Congress are obsessed with one person. That's what this country is about: it's about the individual over the collective, and how the two must be kept in harmony through law. What a great country, where one individual could have her name mentioned in Congress! Wouldn't you want that for yourself? I know I do. I WANT to live in a place where people care about just one person, especially that person who is the weakest among us."

The woman replied with a surprising statement.

"That's a very interesting take on it, but I don't buy it."

At that, we skied off in separate directions.

I share this for no other reason than to illustrate a disturbing, nattering consistency. It is that consistency which is always inconsistent: it is like a predictable anomaly.

Perhaps I can make myself clearer by pointing out the obvious: My chairlift companion at the very beginning of our ride berated President Bush for caring solely about big groups of people - corporations. Moments later she was lynching him because he cared solely about one person.

Isn't that amazing?

That corporations are composed of individuals - that most corporations consist of individual Americans - is somehow irrelevant to the progressive critic of the Bush Administration, like the woman with whom I spoke. There is apparently something intrinsically nefarious to the 'corporation'. Something un-American and illiberal.

But alas there is nothing wrong (at least to the progressive) with the corporations of state, like soldiers; or the groups of poor people or those disenfranchised by Social Security cuts. No, these kinds of corporate needs are OK, even lovely, to the liberal mind. To that mind, it is bad for the President to care about large groups, unless they are the right groups. And it is bad if he cares about one woman, unless she is the right kind of woman (preferrably a woman who needs an abortion but can't get one). THAT kind of woman should bring a government to a stop.

Thus the foolish consistency of liberalism is to be found on a ski hill in southern New Hampshire. Such foolishness consistently reproaches the President of the United States with arguments that are anything but consistent.

Welcome to the cold desert of the real.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Related Post: A Central (Yet Not Comedic) Irony

God bless you please, Mr. Robinson

Rindge, NH (3/28/05) - In a speech at Franklin Pierce College entitled 'What in God's name is going on in America?', Gene Robinson, the feted bishop of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire, takes umbrage with that bogeyman of American politics, the 'religious right.' (www.mledger.com/2005/archives/1-news-033105.shtml)

Perhaps Mr. Robinson is referring to the audacious declaration found at this well-known religion's website:

'BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the UUA urges its member congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists to proclaim and promote our principles by becoming active participants in public institutions such as schools, libraries, political parties, and governmental bodies.' [General Assembly, 1996]

Of course, Mr. Robinson could not be referring to that kind of activism.

That the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) baldly calls its members to express their religiosity by directly and unabashedly promoting UUA principles in all aspects of American political life hardly raises Robinson's eyebrows. Why is he so indifferent? Because the UUA is a supporter of Mr. Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in Christendom; and he shares with the religious left the hope of creating a liberal, tolerant theocracy, where an 'all-loving God (read 'permissive') is going to be victorious.'

The UUA as a self-described beacon of the religious left is gratuitously political in its agenda, and is, in all ways, a promoter of ideals unsurprisingly similar to the Democratic Party (particularly the left wing of that party). Find a Unitarian-Universalist who is a conservative Republican, and I say you’ve found a miracle.

Is it not a grotesque picture, or a macabre irony, that a religious official would use his religion in politics to censure religion in politics? Mr. Robinson himself is clearly fixated on reproaching the Bush Administration’s policies on everything, and this in the name of his church and his God. Is everyone OK with that?

Moreover, Mr. Robinson claims that God is 'horrified' by the things being done in God's name, ostensibly by the Republicans, and that he, Robinson, not only knows what God is thinking, he knows what God would not be horrified by: namely the political ideas of Mr. Robinson, which, again unsurprisingly, are identical with the Democratic Party platform. What a prophetic voice! (Just think that Mr. Robinson believes conservatives are arrogant.)

Sadly, lost on Mr. Robinson, is that he is guilty of promoting a theocracy that pleases the religious left.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

-'It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.' Charles Peguy

Krugman, that gnostic

In the inaugural post for Contratimes, it is only fitting that I begin with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, whose most recent op-ed, "An Academic Question" (NYT, 4.5.05) was tagged with this delicious subhead (NYT emailed edition): 'There are so few Republican university professors because the party tends to favor revelation over research.'

After reading Mr. Krugman's piece, I find it unlikely that the subhead, serving as precis, is Krugman's thesis; rather, it appears that it his conclusion. It is at least the conclusion of the New York Times editor who wrote that subhead, as there is no such line found in Krugman's essay.

But one would think that, with an editor of such apparent caliber perusing Krugman's piece, he or she would have at least noticed that Krugman's conclusion is itself not derived from evidence, but by something akin to revelation.

To this writer, Krugman's entire piece smacks of gnosticism, that ancient Christian heresy whose adherents claimed a special, privileged knowledge over their peers. For Krugman intimates, without presenting anything other than what he apparently gleaned from tea leaves, the reason why so few conservatives choose academic professions: conservatives resist intellectual progress. Moreover, Krugman just KNOWS, instinctively and intuitively, that conservatives, and Republicans under their sway, are simply anti-intellectual, medieval in scientific aptitude and mystical in epistemology.

Curiously, what Krugman is ultimately saying is identical to what one of my dinner companions said over our evening victuals: Liberals are in academia because they are smarter than conservatives.

Yes, yes, of course, liberals are smart. In fact, they're Krugman-smart.

Unwittingly (perhaps) Krugman has opened the entire debate regarding the predominance of liberals and the dearth of conservatives in academia to the full light of religion and philosophy. For his concerns are all about religious and philosophical presuppositions; about the foundations of knowledge (epistemology) and reality (metaphysics); about who determines truth, and who or what controls the rules as to how truth is ascertained.

Unfortunately, that light might be too bright for Krugman's concerns. Culling from surveys and data any real, quantifiable evidence that conservatives are academically deficient eludes Krugman's capabilities, as he merely extrapolates from the well-documented fact that liberals control academia. (That Krugman also ignores the operative word - control - is telling. Liberals do control academia.) Krugman essentially argues that because liberals sit in high places, and that they have embraced the grand modern paradigms, then conservatives, who are not in high places, must oppose those prevailing paradigms. Otherwise conservatives would sit in academic chairs.

(Of course, this is like saying that because the Pope is Catholic, those who are not the Pope must be anti-Catholic. Otherwise, they'd be Pope. A ridiculous fallacy, for sure.)

But what, pray tell, would become of Krugman's writing career without some reference to that laughingstock construct - Creationism - and the baneful term 'theocracy'? For Krugman, without flinching, implies that Republicans are theocrats, woefully ignorant of the finer points of Darwinism and the First Amendment. If more Republicans were Darwinists rather than fundamentalists, Krugman might say, perhaps Republicans would receive academia's most revered prizes.

KRUGMAN AND EVOLUTION

What Krugman fails to examine is what really irks conservatives (though by no means all). Conservatives are dubious of not so much evolution, but Evolution, that supra-scientific paradigm that declares what is beyond science's purview: that Evolution is all there is. Countless conservatives (yes, even conservative Christians) accept evolution: they see it in hybrid plants and exotic dog breeds every day. What they don't accept is the over-reaching claim that Evolution - Evolution with a capital E - is paramount.

Open-minded thinkers do not hold tenaciously to this supra-scientific dogma; nor do most critical thinkers who seek a new paradigm, or who are pressing closer to a unifying theory. Excluding a Designer, for instance, from scientific inquiry is like saying that close examination of an ancient building is only scientific if one precludes any concept of a builder. Yes, the modern scientist is expected to examine the parts of that ancient building - cornices, footings, pilasters and partitions - all interesting unto themselves; but he or she is not permitted to infer a builder, or to inquire of one's existence, since the concept of builder is pre-excluded as unscientific.

That this strikes the common man as ludicrous is clear; that it strikes the sophisticated as nonsense is no less crystalline.

I once knew a world-renowned biologist - Harvard-educated, an expert on estuaries - who shared how his 'love of Jesus Christ' infused his biology and informed his understanding of natural selection. For this man, a self-described evangelical, a Designer was not outside the realm of science; nor was design disqualified a priori. Science and God were in fact compatible.

No doubt the rejoinder to this is that God is not empirically verifiable, though one would be hard-pressed to find a scientific discovery that proves that.

But empirical justification, one may counter, is itself elusive: There were many 'scientific' things once considered empirically justified that are now dismissed as nonsense, the stationary earth being one of them. Science itself evolves, tossing away long trusted theories and facts like so much flotsam. Why, pray tell, do we think humanity cannot or will not discover God via scientific methodology? Why would anyone limit the scope of such human inquiry? Who dares restrict what may be deemed testable? Why such pessimism about the limits of science?

That conservative thinkers tend to be more sentient of their presuppositions; that they tend to be mindful of their own predilections for coloring data according to those presuppositions, may in fact preclude them from gaining equal footing in academia with those deemed infallible merely because they embrace the dominant paradigms.

Krugman can snicker all he wants at those he thinks are misguidedly open to the idea that the universe is not a closed system. (For that's what this all ultimately comes down to, whether the universe is open or closed.) But this writer's experience has been that the brightest and most creative thinkers have always believed that the universe is not some self-contained, self-perpetuating entity. They have been open to other frames of reference; they've thought outside the paradigm; and they've doubted whether what one sees is indeed what one gets.

As for theocracy, Krugman should take cover from the religious left that is stomping on the threshold of the American cult. For the religious left has its own goals for America, goals deemed 'true' and pleasing to God. (See God bless you please, Mr. Robinson, for starters)

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

--'It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.' Charles Peguy

Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, Gnosticism, Intelligent Design, evolution, Creationism