The Warren Report

On gods and Bushes

2004-11-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

I've been stewing about this subject for some time, trying to decide how to write about it. I will still write my own piece, but here's one I saw on a recent episode of "In The Life" on public television.

These words of wisdom come from Harvey Fierstein. If you don't know who that is, it doesn't matter. Just read on, MacDuff.

"I don't believe in heaven. In fact, I don't believe in any sort of conscious afterlife. More to the point, I don't believe in god or gods or goddesses. But I pray every day, sometimes more than once a day, and I operate under a complicated belief system pretty much of my own device which I base on scientific laws and humanistic principles and all in all, it works for me.

I tell you this not to seek any converts or to invite any discussion of any specific religion. I just want you to know that my beliefs might seem just as silly to you as yours do to me and that's cool. We are lucky enough to be living in a country that not only guarantees the freedom to practice religion as we see fit, but also freedom from religious zealots who would persecute and prosecute and even physically harm those of us who do not believe as they do.

You say 'Good, kind, god-fearing people don't go around killing non-believers.' I quote the immortal words of Monty Python: 'No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!' No one ever expects it, but that's usually what they get. Look to the Middle East. Look to Ireland. Look to Brooklyn.

More wars have been fought in the name of religion than any other cause. More people have been persecuted, reputations ruined, and fortunes plundered, and murders committed in the name of religion than any other enterprise. And more every day bigotry and prejudice is founded on what religion a person follows than any other factor.

A nun walks into a room. You automatically cut her some slack and give her a modicum of respect. Conversely, a man tells you he thinks god is a bunch of superstitious hooey and you start looking to the sky for a lightning bolt to appear.

Now the atheist may in fact be a Nobel prize winner who has spent his life in service of mankind. He may be the noblest being who has ever walked the earth. But if you had to leave your wallet with either this guy who says there is no god or with the nun who says 'Bless you, my child' with a beatific smile, who are you gonna trust with your hard-earned cash? That, my friends, is how prejudice works.

The world has learned in recent years that just because you're a priest doesn't mean you can't be a child-rapist. In fact, the Catholic church is the only organization on record to dispense money from a slush fund set up solely for the paying off of abused children's families. So always remember, you cannot judge a man by his collar. Anyway.

It's supposed to be different in America, but is it? We live in a land where to wince at the phrase 'God Bless America' makes you somehow suspect. If you refuse to salute the flag and say 'God' in your pledge, you are actually judged un-American. But that's not the way America is supposed to be. That's the way Iran is and after 200 billion of our tax dollars, that's the way Iraq is - again.

Predicating patriotism on a citizen's belief in god is as anti-American as judging him on the color of his skin. It is wrong. It is useless and it is unconstitutional. So how did we get stuck with a President who does it every day of the week?

Forget believing in god. How about thinking for yourself on a subject. In May of this year an American Catholic Archbishop decreed that any parishioner under his jurisdiction who votes for a pro choice, pro gay rights, or pro stem cell research candidate may not take communion. In other words, you go to hell if you don't vote the way the Catholic church wants you to vote.

Are you getting my point yet?

BOTTOM LINE: I don't care what you believe or what church you attend or how religion-oriented your private life is. Keep it out of my government. Keep it out of my laws. Keep it out of my bedroom. And keep it out of the war rooms at the Pentagon.

What you believe and how you worship is a matter between you and your higher power, whatever that means to you.

So how about this? You don't tell me I'm going to hell and I won't tell you the Emperor has no clothes.

Deal?"

Talk about trailing a trend...New Blog Anyone?

2004-09-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is September 11th and I find myself not really caring. I didn't know anyone who got killed or even injured. I have heard scores of friends and acquaintances tell insipid little stories that they seem to think somehow link them personally to what happened that day. Maybe they are right, but more likely they are clinging to that tenuous connection because it gives them an excuse to say, "Well, it's out of my control. I feel their pain, but I couldn't prevent it any more than the people who were actually there."

Whatever.

What I do care about and what I may be writing a lot about in the coming months is this outdated sham of an election process that has placed the U.S.A. on such morally bankrupt thin ice.

Before I do that, I should probably put this into perspective.

I am not affiliated with any party, but lately it seems a crime to waste a vote (my opinion) on any 3rd party candidate. In my view it's really time to shit or get off the pot. I don't much care which side you choose, but this pandemic of apathy has got to stop. We Americans have been on auto-pilot since the era of Vietnam and Nixon scalded our sensibilities until we were numb. We chose to stop caring. Collectively, the mass of Americans who dealt with the Kennedy assassinations, Watergate, Vietnam, and the breakup of the Beatles seem to have thrown up their hands and walked away and who can blame them?

They spent their entire lives believing that the Beaver lived the good life and the worst thing that could happen was another World War. They were half right. It's no wonder they turned away after having all their ideals questioned, their trust violated not once but many times, and their notions of right and wrong ripped to shreds on a daily basis. They understood what was right about sending a generation of young men to fight the aggression of the Axis powers. They were willing to believe that the Korea "police action" was just as noble a cause. But when they started losing tens of thousands of young men and women to an enemy with no uniform and in battles with no apparent purpose or honor, it all became too much.

But it wasn't enough. If Vietnam had been the only trouble, our parents and grandparents might have kept their optimism and trust intact. But there were other issues before and after Vietnam. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassinations, and the never-ending Cirque de Narcissism that is our presidential electoral process all took their toll.

So what's my point?

My point is that people riding out a hurricane or standing on a large sinking ship rarely have the wherewithal to recognize their own state of peril.

This nation is in peril, but not the kind that the Circus folks (right, left, mudd- er-middle, and media) would have you believe. Each of those factions would have you believe that one or more of the other factions is entirely responsible for our current state. Like magicians, they want you to focus on them and their message, not the big picture. So they cry out for your help, your money, your votes on a daily basis. With every biased report, every morally superior declaration, every venomous accusation, they tip this nation in one direction or another, never once realizing that their outrageous antics only serve to place this nation into more and more precarious positions.

We are a nation full of itself. We stand firm in our belief that the worst that can happen is that we may lose TV for a week or the price of something may go up. The big picture, the one that includes the entire world, the system that supports us and feeds our needy little narrow minds, that big picture is purposefully obscured by the Circus. And when they can hide it entirely, they filter it and explain it away in a million ways.

The Circus never rests. The Circus is always working to ensure that your world view is as narrow and uninformed as they need it to be in order to retain whatever power and wealth they and their families and friends have cobbled together in their short lives. Their no vast conspiracy in either of the wings or even back stage. No. This greed, this megalomania, this selfishness, this vindictiveness, these are all normal, albeit despicable, human feelings. And these “evil” people you hear about are just human beings giving into these baser instincts.

In the end, these are just people who, for whatever reason, want to carry out their little plans. Some of them must have good motives, but I’m guessing most do not. That hardly matters.

What matters is that this nation is in peril of losing all credibility, all trust, and all good will around the world. As a nation we have a chance to set an example. As a nation we can help bring the world, ALL of the world, to a new level of cooperation, respect, and peaceful coexistence. I’m not talking about making every country look (gasp!) like the U.S.A. I’m talking about making choices that provide a sensible, sustainable standard of living for every person on the planet. But to do that we must first agree that we want our nation to play that role.

The simple truth is that we as a nation have to make choices. Sometimes we have to make impossibly difficult choices. The trouble is, we’ve had a taste of living on auto-pilot and we, as a people, kind of like it. However, left to individual politicians and ideologues, our government will eventually devolve into a truly Orwellian mess. If we really want our nation to play a role in advancing the world, we must first overcome our collectively over-developed sense of apathy.

We have to read.
We have to work at understanding who is telling us the truth.
We have to actually care enough to not accept CNN or FOX News as our only new source.
In short, we have to change the way we collect, analyze, and make use of information around us.

I’m hoping this Blog will be the first step in helping me overcome my own apathy. I vote, but I rarely spend the time to make my vote really count. I certainly don’t participate in any substantive way in my political world. I want to change that. I want to make a difference.

If you are still reading this, you’ll probably like my Blog. I won’t write about politics every time. I have too many opinions (informed and otherwise) to write about one thing all the time.

One last note for now. I haven’t read other people’s Blogs so I don’t know how I compare. If you have an opinion about what I’ve written, feel free to add a comment. That’s what this is all about. If your feedback capabilities are limited to those seen in lower mammals, I’m hoping you’ll just move on, but hey, this is the internet, last bastion of the unintelligencia, so my expectations are set appropriately.