Thursday, September 30, 2004
I'd rather not have Bush as a president
If I were American, I'd rather have a president who is able to protect his own country without sleeping on intelligence reports alerting on possible attacks. I'd rather have a president who pursues the real terrorists instead on starting wars against countries that are wrecks and not threats, on the grounds of pretexts, and only for disguised reasons of power and money. I'd rather have a president who is able to foresee the consequences of his actions for the whole world. I'd rather have a president who does not break alliances and who does not step with arrogance on international laws meant to safeguard peace. I'd rather have a president who does not caress the idea of employing mini-nuclear bombs in a wider range of cases. I would rather have a president who does not want to build 50 new nuclear reactors in USA by year 2020, with the risk on a nuclear Armageddon for terrorists attacks or breakdowns. I'd rather have a president who supports forms of alternative clean energy. I'd rather have a president that helps the economy and poorer people instead of making the rich richer. I'd rather have a president who does not think the Christian-Born-Again agenda should apply for all the USA. I'd rather have a president who does not manipulate or hide scientific findings. And I'd rather have a president who respects civil rights instead of enacting 'patriot acts' that are not patriotic at all for a country which intends to be a leader in democracy and justice. In short, I would not want to have Bush as a president.
The danger of a dumb Republican theocracy
Really interesting article by Heather Wokusch. Excerpt:
"As the religious right gains ground in the US, accompanied by politicians evoking the god-fearing values of good and evil, a culture honoring diversity is replaced by calls for apocalyptic war.
As always, the schoolyard has become a major political battleground. Hysteria over removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance aside, the latest educational minefield lies in the origins of life: namely a return to the 1925 Scopes Trial debate of evolution vs. creationism. For example, to promote Christianity, Cobb County, Georgia is putting disclaimers on its science textbooks, saying that evolution is "a theory, not a fact," and school districts from Kansas to Ohio are enmeshed in battles royale over an issue that should be settled in a country separating church and state.
[...]
So we're left with US arsenals of mass destruction in the hands of politicians with a simplistic good/evil, us/them approach to the globe - among whom are those seeking salvation in a fiery Middle Eastern apocalypse.
Not the most comforting reality as the potentially nuclear Palestine-Israel conflict implodes, and Iraq is backed into more dangerous corner every day.
[...]
Ultimately, rather than glorifying in the sinners "left behind" to face torturous battles with the Antichrist, we should focus on helping those left behind by today's unbalanced social and economic systems. Through diversity and tolerance we all are lifted up; through small-minded arrogance and greed we all lose."
Judge rules against parts of the 'Patriot' Act
Judge rules against parts of the Patriot Act. After so much abuse of civil rights and even of simple reasonability in the name of 'patriotism' by the Bush administration, people should understand that real patriotism in the US now means voting for a change. For a better president who respects people's rights, people's needs (as opposed to those of corporations), the needs of democracy (as opposed to those of a theocracy), needs for a more intelligent foreign policy. A president who does not use 200 billion dollars and thousands of lifes to finish 'daddy's job' with the pretext of WMD, careless of the consequences that we can see everyday.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Mushroom-shaped dangers with Bush
If Bush wins, we will have a less safe, more belligerent world, with the most powerful nation being lead by someone who does not hesitate to haste into unnecessary wars on the grounds of false evidence (lies regarding WMD and connections Iraq-9/11).
People who don't even think about the consequences or the burdens of their actions. People who don't have the intellectual and moral resources to find real solutions for a more peaceful world. People who do not hesitate to manipulate others, only to act for hidden reasons of money or geo-political power. Fanatic people who caress the idea of using 'cute' small nuclear bombs in a broader range of cases.
These people have failed to protect their own country and can create huge disasters in the economy. And the ultimate danger, given their stands, their senseless hastiness and belligerence, has the shape of a mushroom.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Impressive speech
Cheaney snarls, Bush gibbers, Kerry thinks and makes sense in his speeches.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
The fanatism of the Bush administration gang
If an American voter is concerned for peace, legality and stability in the world, he should analise the background and the vision of the current candidates to see who is really the best one to guarantee them. Perhaps one who steps over international laws and starts unilateral wars on the grounds of pretexts, with sham evidence, without support from allies and turns the Middle East into a bottomless pit of tension and violence? I don't think so.
But the same American voter can further analyse what type of vision really drives Bush and his crew. Just read about the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), and see who its current and former member are. Read through their aims. And think youself if these people, affected by dangerous mania of grandeur,. are or are not dangerous and liable to create more tension, conflicts and violence. Judge yourself if these people, who think in terms of global leadership (or, shall we say, domination) and geo-political control, are those who will more likely create a world of peace and stability and mutual acceptance.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Kerry or Bush for Catholics?
Is voting Kerry a sin for Catholics?
What issues should matter in order to decide who to vote? Is Bush necessarily the candidate for Catholics? Is Kerry not for Catholics because more open on pro-choice positions?
Much has been said on these issues, often in a very manipulative way. Often using old-fashioned religious scare tactics. In many cases, some Catholics have suggested that one should vote Bush, and that voting Kerry would be a sin. Is this approach right or wrong from a Catholic point of view?
Wrong.
A Catholic could vote a candidate supporting pro-choice positions without committing a sin. Who said it? Cardinal Ratzinger the Pope's prefect of doctrine.
If, in a given historical period, a voter, in his conscience, deems that a pro-choice candidate would be better at dealing with issues of graver impact, then a Catholic can vote him without committing a sin.
And this is the case. There is a more important issue in these elections. Peace in the whole world.
Bush light-heartedly starts unnecessary unilateral and illegal wars using pretexts. He breaks U.N. international laws, privileging brutal force over firm but reasonable legality. He has contributed to inflaming the Middle East and the whole world with tension. His party also appears to be interested in the use of small nuclear bombs in conflicts.
In this particular historical period, the first priority is peace for the whole world.
The US needs a more balanced President with more respect for international laws. A president who, in actual facts, would consider war the very last resort, not an ordinary way to manage foreign policy. A President for peace and conciliation, not a president for the brutal clash of opposite visions and with a dangerous combination of messianism, patronizing disrespect for truth and belligerence. A president who does not self-appoint himself as the spreader of democracy imposed with war against common sense, compassion, legality and truth.
More peace in the whole world is the priority now.
Labour must dare to speak for Britain - and Iraq
From the Guardian. Excerpt of an interesting article:
"The kidnapping of Kenneth Bigley may yet bring home the Iraq war to Britain in a way that months of TV footage of mayhem and misery have failed to do. The focus on his plight has, of course, been in stark contrast to the utter disinterest in the circumstances in which 300 Iraqis have been killed - most by US forces, many of them civilians - in the past week. But there still remains a sense of unreality in public life about the enormity of what Britain has helped to create in Iraq: a "crisis of historic proportions", in the words of the US Democratic challenger, John Kerry.
By any normal reckoning, the events of the past few days should have triggered a political crisis in Britain. The conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group that there were no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion, the leaked Whitehall documents confirming that Blair was warned in advance of the likelihood of post-war chaos and, crucially, the declaration by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, that the war launched by a British prime minister was illegal should be a lethal combination.
The implications, after all, could not be more damning. If Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction by the late 1990s, as is now almost universally accepted, Iraq was evidently not in material breach of UN resolutions. If the war was illegal, as is now believed by most global opinion, then the only people fighting legitimately in Iraq are the resistance groups defending their homeland - not the forces of states that committed an international crime by attacking a country without provocation. That is the war still being fought out on the streets of Baghdad, Basra, Falluja and Ramadi - a war now so discredited that Blair is desperate to redefine it as a "new conflict" against terror. "
Monday, September 20, 2004
An interesting article on a US Navy Web site
Interesting article by Prof. Douglas Porch from the Center for Contemporary Conflict of the US Navy. It seems that even on US Navy web sites one can read articles that show way more brain than the Bush Administration. Excerpt:
"Throwing good money after bad in Iraq becomes a test of sanity rather than of mettle. The momentum of democratic change in the Middle East appears to have swung against us—the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, which now seem more extensive than first thought,[6] has hampered our ability to claim the moral high ground, while allowing the insurgency plausibly to proclaim their attacks as a just response to a brutal occupation. No democratic Baghdad government with a U.S. imprimatur can hope to endure. To persist in a failed strategy will invite coalition defections, further radicalize the region, undermine our few remaining Middle Eastern allies, drain U.S. coffers, cost military casualties, and possibly damage irreparably U.S. civil-military relations."
[...]
"What should our strategic readjustment look like? Begin with the abandonment of unilateralism, to include a cessation of Washington's Axis-like insistence that the national interests of its allies be ruthlessly subordinated to our own. NATO should continue its reorientation into an alliance capable of "out-of-area" operations, with U.S-German cooperation at its core. Iraq should have made it clear that the "War on Terror" cannot be won with high-tech gadgetry alone—"military transformation," which so far has aimed to keep the technological lead over a hypothetical "peer competitor," and intimidate enemies and potential enemies into quiescence has been exposed as what British military historian Michael Howard has called the "Blitzkrieg fallacy." Technology, no matter how overpowering, cannot eradicate political uncertainty. Rather, "military transformation" combined with a more multilateral foreign policy that legitimizes American and "Western" goals in the Middle East, should aim to create joint and combined forces, to include civil affairs and military police, able to undertake security building missions. In this way, the Western alliance, focused on the inter-related challenges of failed states, WMD proliferation, terrorism and international criminal activity, armed with common approach to deal with it, and a force structure able to apply a political-military strategy, can return to the offensive with a better hope of success."
Read the whole article here.
Bush president of Wonderland
By his own admission Bush does not really read papers. He lives in a world of his own. Surely, the best president for manipulative corporate obscure interests but not for the interests of people in the USA and in the world. The Iraqi war is being a disaster and it is getting worse, yet president Bush obstinately portrays it in a rosy unreal way.
Read the following:
Article 1 - Top Democrat: Kerry to hit Bush on Iraq (CNN)
Article 2 - McCain: Bush not straight enough on Iraq (CNN)
Article 3 - Senators Urge Bush to Rething Iraq Policy (ABC News)
Article 4 (La Repubblica, Italian)
Beware the morality of senility, decrepitude, envy, rancour, death. In short, beware the morality of Christianity.
The morality of the hidden smile that gazes a fabricated world while despising and dismissing the real one with a self-indulgent narcissistic smile.
The morality of numbness and disease. The morality of meek obedience and passivity for the promise of a contrived award. The morality of the base commerce of one's being and uniqueness, spirit and body, as a pledge for the vacuous and fatuous product of human lips.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Erections and Catholics
Somebody typed the following in the search engine of Yahoo and somehow found my Web site: I get erections throughout the day how can i stop them.
This might sound something deserving a chuckle, and yet, from the sick Catholic point of view, it is not a problem of secondary importance. So much so that apparently even St. Augustine dedicated some attention to this, considering spontaneous erections a consequence of Adam's sin! Another Father of the Church, Origen, surely a adopted quite drastic 'solution', which I certainly would not recommend: he castrated himself. Nowadays some Opus Dei's member would probably increase their daily dose of self-scourging. Many priests seek relief in altar boys or in other devout boys in their prime. Well what can I say? I see a continuity of sickness in all these behaviours and conceptions.
So what should the guy do? Hopefully none of the above. If you are a Catholic say "to hell those psychotic teachings", and find yourself a woman, or a guy if you like them (please not abusive sex like many priests do) and have sex, even if you are not married (just like at least 50% of the Catholic priests do). Just in case you have been exposed to abstinence-only fanatics and thus you don't know anything about condoms and self-protection, seek info on that. In some cases also masturbation can be an option. I am sure God, if you believe in him, does not really care. If he exists, I am sure he is not so freaking obsessed with sex as they suggest. Besides it was his fault if you were created with a penis. Don't seek advice from priests. They are not reliable. And if you are young, some of them might give you the old eye and propose 'pious' relief with them.
Friday, September 17, 2004
Mother of a soldier killed in Iraq arrested
She wanted to ask Laura Bush: "Why the senators, the legislators, the congressmen, why aren't their children serving?"
Thursday, September 16, 2004
The mindless optimism of Bush about Iraq contradicted by report
"WASHINGTON Sept. 16, 2004 — The National Intelligence Council presented President Bush this summer with several pessimistic scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq, including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.
In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined that at best stability in Iraq would be tenuous, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity."
Read the rest of the ABCnews article here. Bush has done a disaster by starting what United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has defined "an illegal war" in Iraq. A disaster for the world and for American people.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
140 new claims of sexual abuse in the Boston Diocese
140 more claims of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Boston, the Boston Globe reports. But now, these "Catholic champions of morality and piety" and "Catholic love" try to elude settlements, saying that they have not got money left after the settlements of 541 cases last year. What? After having gaily enjoyed abusing young boys, betraying their vows and the trust of people, and damaging kids for life, these freaking hypocritical pederasts don't even want to pay?
The Catholic church should already consider itself lucky. I presume that if every single person abused by Catholic perv-priests filed a claim, the Vatican itself would go bankrupt, which at least would bring back a single virtue (evangelical poverty) to an organization ridden by intrinsic vice and disease.
They probably want to turn the whole society into something like that seminary in Austria, recenly shut down after a massive scandal of homosexual orgies and pornography (see picture below. You can also read my post of Sept. 1st.), but they wish to continue to do it in the dark, secretely, clandestinely, in line with their priestly tradition. Their black gowns can even be seen like perfect comouflages for obscurity, a metaphor of their slimy duplicity. But they don't want to bear the consequences.
The above picture is the typical result of the sick, dissociated, mysoginist Catholic culture: it only creates hypocrisy, duplicity, sheepishness, and vice. Though repressed by Catholic teachings, and despite an official 'celibacy' (respected by only a minority of them) sexual drives find their way of expression in Catholic clergy, only in twisted, clandestine, hypocritical and often abusive ways. This is not a gratuitous claim. It is the picture of a "tradition" that has gone on for centuries in complete impunity, as Dr. Richard Sipe and others have written. It is a historical fact, or a chronic fact, if you like. The above pictures can be considered examples of the typical priests who will gravely talk against premarital sex, masturbation and homosexuality, and extoll the Popes' Theology of the Body, while having fun amongst themselves and with young boys. I would not personally suggest parents to send their kids to Catholic churches and parishes. It is well known that the Catholic Church, not unsurprisingly, has the highest percentage of pederasts within its ranks, compared to other religions and compared to the average of society (have you ever wondered why?), not to mention the pathogenic influences of the Catholic vision, from a psychiatric point of view.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Bush did not serve honourably
Bush: dodger and awol? New evidence
An article on the Boston Globe gives evidence that the current president of the United States enjoyed special treatment during the Vietnam war, thanks to his political connections (his father was a US Congressman): he was helped to dodge the service in Vietnam and remain protected in the National Guard. Moreover, although being awol in the National Guard, he did not bear consequences, again thanks to his powerful connections.
Read also:
- article from the Guardian
- article from The New York Times
- article from CNN.com
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Brain is what matters most in foreign policy, not dumb force
The war in Iraq has uncovered completely a Pandora box of evils. Everything has simply and tragically become worse than ever, and violence has spread everywhere. More and more the news resemble a neverending nightmare. But what could have been expected from an illegal, arbitrary war lead with arrogance? And how idiotic was, on the part of the USA (Bush administration), to pretend to appear credible in the Middle-East as peace-makers and spreaders of civilization? Nearly like expecting Israel would. Was it so hard to imagine the outcomes? Americans should really think harder than they have so far when it comes to supporting a president. A war cannot be started on the grounds of flimsy pretexts and democracy cannot be 'imposed' with force. There were dozens of other ways to both be assured that Saddam was not a threat and to help Iraqi people without striking a unilateral attack. For how long shall this continue? I am afraid that if the current administration continues for another term things will not get any better.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Hilarious Bush Games
Check out the following political online games, they are hilarious:
Bush Out
Quite liberating, while waiting for the final liberation, in November.
Bushgame
Really impressive.
Bush Adm. Match Game
Instructive
Mr. President Drag&Drop&Catch
Ahemmm a bit surreal
Monday, September 06, 2004
This is too funny
The 2004 Christian Coalition Voter Guide. Hilarious.
And this President's nomination acceptance speech, even funnier.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Bush's speech at the Convention: Industrial amounts of bulhshit
So, according to Bush (his speech at the convention, as reported here):
1. the world is safer thanks to his administration
2. the health system in the US is the best in the World
3. The schooling system is at levels of excellence
4. America is again prosperous
5. the current administration has created employment
BUT
1. In Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Europe and Russia violence has multiplied also thanks to a the current administration's blind politics that has thrown fuel on fire, by starting an illegal, expensive and unuseful war. In Iraq American soldiers die daily, while thousands of Iraqi civilians have died and still do. The world has not seen worse times than this in recent years. And all this started on account of an empty claim based on manipulated gossip
2. 42 million American do not have health insurance
3. The level of analphabetism in US high-schools is the highest amongst industrialised countries.
4. Clinton's administration brought America's economy to the best results in the last 30 years. Bush's administration has been characterised by economical depression.
5. Considering the growth of population, the new employed in the US should have been 4,000,000. Instead, since Bush took office, 1,000,000 people lost their jobs. Only lately 144,000 jobs were created (way lower than hoped), but General Motors and Ford have already announced reductions in the production by 7 and 8% respectively (with consequent losses of jobs). So really, 5, 000,000 jobs are missing.
Does Bush think that people are gullible fools? The problem is that those who vote Bush don't seem to realise what they are doing, and those who do don't care. What bottom do Americans want to reach before realising they need a change?
American Dream?
An interesting article on the Guardian on the American Dream vs. the European Dream. It turns out that, in many respects, the situation in the United States is not so dream-like (link seen in alltohuman.org blog).
Thursday, September 02, 2004
This book should be interesting
This might be interesting: Upstairs, Downstairs: Did Jesus Want a Two-Class Church? by Herbert Haag, well known Catholic theologian.
Here a text by Herbert Haag (in an Italian translation) which clarifies how priests and celibacy have been "invented" by the Roman Catholic Church only 400 years after Christ, but do not correspond to the original Christian teaching. A part of this text, translated in English: "Jesus showed in his words and acts that he did not want priests. He was not a priest nor any of the apostles or Paul. [...] The Church's crisis will persist until when a new constitution is made. The new constitution shall not allow to have two classes - priests and laymen, consecrated and not consecrated - and should establish that a task entrusted by the Church be enough to lead a community and celebrate Eucharist. This task shall be given to both men and women, either married or not. [...]"
Interesting site
This guy has put online much of his personal spiritual path. In an introductory page he writes:
"Having been a 'good' Catholic for many years, I understand how things are on the 'inside.' When I say, for example, that Catholics are told what to think in spiritual matters, and not how to think, I include myself in that number. It was not an easy thing for me to begin thinking for myself, to begin to take responsibility for my own spiritual welfare. I recall all too well how my back went up whenever I heard anyone challenge some teaching of my church! I was even obnoxious about it. After all, hadn't I been told that I belonged to the only true church? Wasn't I a privileged person? But secretly, my inability to answer questions put to me rankled me on the inside. My anger at those who challenged me stemmed from my own ignorance, not from any true indignation. I had no answers and hated anyone whose questions revealed my ignorance."
He is admirable in that he has understood the value of individual inquiry as opposed to sheepish obedience and quenching of doubts. In his other pages he raises many interesting points.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
A quite 'particular' rendition of the Theology of the Body in seminars
Check this picture.
Quite "sweet" isn't it? It shows the vice rector of Sankt Poelten Catholic Seminary (Austria), a priest, kissing on the mouth an unidentified student who appears quite carried away by the theological passion of the vice rector. (The pictures of this post are from the Austrian magazine Profil, found here, where you can read an interesting comment). You may have read of the big scandal of the Catholic Seminary of Sankt Poelten: homosexual sex with the stimulation of internet pornography, thousands of pictures found, some portraying minors; photos of clergy and students having sex also found and published by the media. The seminary has been closed as a consequence of the scandal. I have also written a post on this not long ago.
Exceptional case? Not really. Unless you turn both eyes blind.
In numerous occasions I have written on the widely-spread pederasty amongst the clergy as well as their duplicitous clandestine sex and their exploitation of minors. All these behaviours are, in my opinion, directly related to the general pathological sexual views of the Catholic Church, ridden by sexophobia and unhealthy denial of the tangible world. By constantly associating sexual acts and thoughts to sin and perdition, and imposing an absurd celibacy, the Roman Catholic creates the soil for sexual immaturity, duplicity, hypocrisy and clandestine sex. Unhealthy repression of sexuality provokes pathology and perversion.
It has been demonstrated that Catholic priests break massively the Catholic teachings on sexuality: they indulge in masturbation, heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, they have concubines, they even abuse young people. And these "misconducts" are not rare. Over 50% of Catholic priests are sexually active, over 50% are gays. Likely at least 90% indulge in masturbation. These are the same people who speak about the Pope's "Theology of the Body", which focuses on the alleged "design of God" regarding human sexuality. The same people who will tell you how wrong is this and that. And yet, these educated, theology experts, who get moved by the "poetry" of disembodied Catholic love are for the most part unable to comply with what they teach.
What does this mean? It is very simple. The Catholic Church requires behaviours (celibacy, heterosexual sex only with marriage, no sex thoughts, no masturbation, no homosexuality) that simply do not match human nature. They probably match angels and cherubs, but not human nature. And these pictures are an iconographic evidence of this. When sexuality is repressed, it emerges somehow anyway. Unfortunately sometimes in pathological ways (compulsive sex, promiscuity, abuses).
Another picture from the Austrian seminary,
showing "theological" affection.
DrChirst, who is a deacon, has claimed in his blog that the human Will is powerful enough to win over sexual drives. Yeah right. By asserting this he shows the ignorance on humans as sexual beings typical of the Catholic Church. Moreover, one should once again remark how twisted and hypocritical the Catholic clergy is, constantly wallowing in their priestly secrecy, and 'rationalizing' their duplicity: they would always minimize or deny facts, and if really obliged to admit by evidence they would tell you, "well, we are humans.". Exactly, you are sexed humans, get over with it and stop being hypocrites.
It would be about time that the whole Catholic Church reflected seriously on these matters and changed a great deal within itself, growing out of their pathological denial of sex, evident in its non scientific, distorted teachings, and making celibacy voluntary for priests.
If I were Catholic and I was expected to, say, send young sons to church or to "Sunday schools", believe me, I would not let myself be blinded by faith. The Catholics who don't want to recognize the inherent sickness of the sexual vision of the Roman Catholic Church are co-responsible of any abuse that may occur. If I were Catholic, I'd rather see in the Church healthy, mature, balanced and married priests (or only voluntarily celibate), rather than sex-starved immature people drooling after boys.
Read also:
An article by Michael Rose: "The Catholic Church's Abu Ghraib".
Celibacy Is A Problem for Priests—And Laity Too By A.W. Richard Sipe
