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The Stupid Rise Up
By John
Looks like "Little Eichmans, the sequel."
The American people, including the families of the murdered Virginia Tech innocents, have collective blood-guilt on their hands. I have not gone to jail to protest the war machine, so I am no better than they and probably a good deal worse because I have given the issue some thought. How many of those parents in the audience hearing the President’s words had elected to Congress men and women who voted for lax laws on gun ownership? How many of those parents in the audience had also voted for legislators who backed the president’s illegal invasion of Iraq? Are we, as a nation, too obtuse to grasp the connection between our “gun culture” policy at home and our militarist policy abroad that murders and mutilates human beings at every turn? Practically any one in America can buy a gun, and abroad, any dictator in the world can buy weapons made in America because we just happen to be the world’s biggest arms peddler.What kind of a society has America become? Why do we have two-million men in our prisons? Why, in some cities, is every second or third male either in prison or out on parole? Why is the murder rate soaring in so many cities? Why is there on average more than one killing a day in a city like Philadelphia? Why are our own terrorists murdering 30,000 Americans each year and injuring tens of thousands more with rapid-fire handguns of the sort used on the Virginia Tech campus? Do we realize, speaking of terrorists, that ten times as many Americans are being killed by Americans each year as all our troops in Iraq? Osama bin Laden is everywhere in America. He has a thousand faces. They are the faces of our own dispossessed, our own poverty-stricken, our own unemployed, our own underclass, our own idolized gangsters , our own youth who grew up in front of television sets that ooze violence and blood.
Who is responsible for the killings in Iraq except the same now bereaved parents of the murdered students at Virginia Tech? It’s not that some of them voted to elect George Bush. Anyone can be deceived, particularly by a notorious liar. But when the president broke the law and invaded Iraq, violating the UN Charter, how many of them protested? Today they are upset that a young, crazed gunman has ran amok on the campus of a peaceful university, but where were they when President Bush defied the United Nations and ran amok in Iraq? Do they know, as Amnesty International reported on the same day as the Virginia Tech murders, the Middle East “is on the verge of a massive humanitarian crisis” because three-million Iraqis have been “forcibly displaced” by the war the grief-stricken Mr. Bush began? Who do the American people think made this humanitarian crisis in the Middle East if not the American people?
The same parents who weep for their children might consider that they and their neighbors are also spending a half trillion dollars a year so that the Pentagon, just over the horizon from Virginia Tech, can wage a war that is snuffing out the lives of children of other parents just like their own. Thousands of Virginians work for the military-industrial complex. They work for the Pentagon. They work for defense contractors. They work for the Central Intelligence Agency. They are in the business of killing directly or indirectly, yet how many of them are haunted by the consequences of their “jobs” in their dreams at night?
All across America, people who attend church and regard themselves as “good” people, such as the bereaved at Virginia Tech, are working in the plants that make atomic bombs and warplanes and napalm and cluster bombs and are creating new, demonical designs of germ warfare and space-based weapons so vile and horrible they defy description.
Vomit-inducing. Seriously, it's that bad. Reminds me of what me and my "angry neighbors" are fighting. The ideology, this corrupt, horrible ideology. And stupid. Incredibly stupid. Incurably stupid.
I love this dude's morals: "Sure, the Virginia Tech shooting was horrible and evil. But guess what, Mr. Churchy McChurch-goer....you're no better."
Really?
There's nothing worse than being insulted by some idiot beatnik who tries to inject iambic pentameter into his writing. Can't you just see him imagining that he's inspiring millions with this crap? Up on the podium, affecting all of us warmongers in some deeply profound way? As if his lame Socratic approach is really designed just to make us think.
Sherwood lives in a cosmos of his own mental construction, where up is down, down is up. The people who he so callously indicts live in the real world. And in that real world, going to church isn't the same as killing 32 people. I know that. You know that. Hell, most thinking people know that. But what pisses me off about this clown is that he represents a large demographic of people who don't know that.
Nor will they ever. You can't fix stupid, y'know?
It should be noted that the extreme right isn't much better than the extreme left.
The families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre may not be able to grieve in peace at the funerals of those they lost. An anti-gay religious group known for protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq is planning on appearing at services for those killed on Monday as well.The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims’ funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.
The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other “sins of the flesh.” Phelps’ daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.
“The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Phelps-Roper said. “You don’t need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell.”
I don't know what book she's been reading, but Mark 12:28 says: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
So these guys are kinda dumb. It's not a matter of interpretation or definition either. There's no passage that says "you shall hate sinners, gays, and non-Christians will all your heart."
Look I'm not trying to spark a religious debate here. Just pointing out that these idiots at Westboro are favoring a small series of Old Testament passages while ignoring the single, driving tenant of Christianity, the sum of all scripture and all the prophets (thank you Lex).
Look if it seems like I'm invoking words such as "stupid, dumb, idiotic" a bit more than usual, that's because there's simply no other way to describe people like these. Stupid, dumb, idiotic.....all easy ways of pointing out a glorious absence of intelligence. No whether you want to blame that on their brains or their ideologies is up to you.
I think it's a little of both.
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Comments
naw, if you read what they're about, it's extreme right wing.
Which really doesn't say anything about normal right wingers. I figured the label might tick some people off though, oh well.
I'm sorry but you are mistaken about the Westboro Baptist Church. They are not right wing. Fred Phleps is a democrat and has even filed for elected office here in Kansas. Just google his name to verify this.
look at his mentality, his ideology. It.Is.Extreme.Right.
My friend's dad has registered as a Democrat for the last 30 years. He's voted Republic in every election for the past 26.
How you register means squat.
OK, look at his ideology....he organized and held election rallies for Al Gore for president.
Only In America....i agree both writings are stupid, arrogant, and using the tragedy of virgina to further their political agendas....however...freedom of speech...its a great thing when we need it...its just most people abuse it and say stuff thats a little bit wacky.
Yes Mike, in the 80s due to Gore's support condemnation of homosexuality. Phelps quickly changed his mind:
"During the 1992 presidential campaign, Phelps protested Hillary Clinton during a campaign speech in support of the Clinton-Gore ticket at the University of Kansas on October 14, 1992. In Bill Clinton's second presidential campaign, Phelps and the Westboro church also opposed Clinton and Gore because of the administration's support for gay rights. The entire Westboro congregation picketed a 1997 inaugural ball[37], denouncing Gore as a "famous fag pimp."[38] In 1998, Westboro picketed the funeral of Gore's father, screaming vulgarities at Gore and telling him, "your dad's in Hell."[38]
In the aftermath of the election, in an incident that would be repeated years later when Phelps circulated a petition to outlaw homosexual work protection, many of the Kansas Democrats who had cast votes for Phelps came forward to express their distaste for him. They said that Phelps had lied about his intentions to numerous constituents, using double-talk and fuzzy language to confuse them; neglected to mention his stances on race, religion, and homosexuality, and campaigned mainly on the platform of a "good ol' boy" Southern gentleman and retired lawyer unfairly prosecuted by the system.[39]"
This is a stupid debate. Everyone, right and left agrees he's a nutjob.
First of all we have not manufactured Napalm in 50 years.
It is the venom that the writer spews is why there is so much hatred for the USA. If a forigner or even a young kid in this country reads this kind of crap on a daily basis what do you think they are going to think of this country.
And as far as Phelps goes, he is nothing but a dangerous lunitic. I'm surprised he is still alive.
Phelps has no agenda but hate and pursuing money. He's not right or left wing, he has one and only one agenda. They (Phelps group - I refuse to call them a church) make a ton off of the 'God hates faggots" protest. Someone 'bumps' into them and they sue and collect a few hundred thousand.
It's interesting, the most vocal and visible opponents to them are the Right Wing and some of the more conservative members. Just ride to a Patriot Guard assembly if you don't believe it.
He's no more right wing than Bin Laden.
Um... 'scuse me. You don't really think the readers of Counterpunch are a "large demographic", do you?
God I hope not Bill.
Certainly the socialist ideology that they promote there has quite a few followers though.
How can you quote the bible and advocate for war at the same time? Christian has become a synonym for cherry picking hypocrite!
well, I guess I could go into the Jus Ad Bellum and all that, but you probably wouldn't read it.
Although, that's a great argument in itself...whether or not Iraq fit Aquinas' Just War Theory...
One additional comment.
The daughter comments that “The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants,” Further proof of their ignorance of the Bible.
God did that exactly to his chosen people - Israel/Slaves in Egypt, to the most "righteous man on earth" - Job, He did it to the apostle of Christ, all save one died horrible deaths, and He did it to His own Son.
I think, pretty much on every page, he promises we will have a hard time in this life....
Hey, John-with-no-link:
Educate yourself, PLEASE. Ignorant jerk.
http://www.gotquestions.org/war-Bible.html
In the coming weeks and months ther will be a renewed debate over gun control, that you can be assured. If I could just add a topical observation.
The Attorney General Roberto Gonzalez
is under fire for the firing of 8 lawyers in the present Bush Administration.
During the Clinton administration, Janet Reno fired all 93 lawyers that's right THE ENTIRE STAFF of the justice dept. "To obtain people who were in better step with the current administration's policies.
Then we had RUBY RIDGE..
Then we had WACO.
Things that make ya go HUMMMM.....
Just sayin,
Richard
charmquark....the bikers will NOT be out in force to protect the families. You can check out the PGR website for the Board of Director's statement about that.
It looks like it will be up to ordinary citizens to protect the families,if necessary.
The first memorial service is scheduled for tonight(April 20) for Mary Read, in northern Virginia. (here is a link with listings of memorial services)
http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/memorial_services.php
I pray the WBC will not show up at that service tonight.
Virginia Does have a law about disrupting funerals:
HB 372 (Carrico) Unlawful assembly at solemn ceremonies . Amends Virginia’s disorderly conduct statute by adding funerals to the existing list of gatherings that interlopers cannot willfully disrupt. Under the statute, a person cannot disrupt a funeral, memorial service, or the meeting of government body, school, literary society or place of religious worship if the disruption interferes with the orderly conduct of the gathering or causes acts of violence by the people at whom the disruption is directed.
But I still think it would be better for it not to have to be used at all,at these memorial services.
Richard,
Those are things that make me go, "so that's what a red herring looks like on my laptop".
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I would hardly consider a church that regularly protests the funerals of our fallen heroes a right wing organization. No matter, I am sure the bikers will be out in force to mitigate their "protest."