24 March 2017. What the American Dream Really Is…

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America isn’t something you can buy in a store. Yes… it’s something just a little bit more…

You don’t have to believe in rightwing lunacy to be a patriot. Indeed, I’d argue that rightwing Yahooism is the antipode of true patriotism. Do think on that…

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24 March 2017. The Artist’s Responsibility

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Even if the consequences are dire, one must never serve evil… never…

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6 April 2015. The Bible is NOT the Law of the Land… THANK GOD!

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The House I Live In… Paul Robeson… it says it all… the Republicans hated him and what he stood for. They persecuted him and made it impossible for him to earn a decent living. Those who hated Paul Robeson and what he stood for LOVE the Indiana Law… fancy that…

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Despite the loud bloviations of some on the right, the Founders did NOT intend to establish a Christian Republic. Rather, they wanted a SECULAR Republic, with no ties to an established religion. That is, the Constitution, NOT THE BIBLE is the “Law of the Land”. You may like that or you may not, but that’s what is. The United States of America was not, is not, and shall never be a “Christian Republic”… those who advocate such want to ram potty Radical American Sectarian (“Evangelical”) notions down everyone’s throat. THAT’S EVIL. Church and State are separate in the USA, and that’s the way it should be. As a member of a minority religion (there are only about a million practising Orthodox Christians tied to parishes in this country, all told), I tend to get worried whenever a Sectarian starts babbling about “morality”… often, that’s only a thinly veiled attempt to force Sectarian fancies on everyone.

The Indiana law was an abomination in legal terms… the state is not in the business of “defending religion”… that’s OUR TASK, as people, not as citizens. If we’re living our faith… whether it be Christian, Sectarian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Secularist, or whatever… there’d be no need for such laws. It’s a sad commentary not only upon us as a society, but as believers. Only unbelievers need such laws. Ponder that, if you will…

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2 July 2014. Some Takes on the Hobby Lobby Brouhaha

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A friend wrote this:

This country has truly gone MAD. We have gone down the rabbit hole, through the looking-glass. The solution is get health insurance OUT of employers’ hands… INDIVIDUAL Healthcare coverage. YOU decide what coverage you want, it has nothing to do with your employer, except to arrange for payroll deductions… like they do with parking permits, bus passes, etc. No “in network”, “out of network”, etc. Those who want coverage for contraception, abortion, other reproductive care, etc., could arrange for it. Your employer would have NO role/decision in what you select. It’s YOUR body, YOUR decision.

The Forward wrote this (the full article is here):

Earlier this month, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) cornered Mat Staver of the US Liberty Council into admitting that a photographer could object to photographing a Jewish wedding on “religious liberty” grounds. In May, Houston TX Pastor Betty Riggle admitted under questioning by City Councilwoman Ellen Cohen that stores could turn away Jews on religious reasons as well. Two separate incidents… both instigated by Jewish leaders at legislative hearings… but with the same result. The “slippery slope” of Hobby Lobby includes discrimination against Jews. Both of these processes were Talmudic in tone. In each case, the conservative Christian activist protested that she or he wasn’t talking about Jews… in each case, the Jewish interlocutor insisted that they could equally apply the logic applied to gays and women to Jews, could they not? Finally, the conservative activists caved. In the words of the aptly named Pastor Riggle, “No. No, I’m not saying… yes, I’m saying that, but that isn’t the issue that we’re talking about”.

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In Hobby Lobby, the court decided that closely held corporations are “persons” for the purposes of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This means that corporations, like human beings, may have religious beliefs that the government must respect. To many of us, this seems patently absurd. As a lower court wrote, corporations “do not pray, worship, observe sacraments, or take other religiously motivated actions”. Yet, Justice Alito proceeded along highly Talmudic… even Pharisaic… lines. He noted that corporations are “persons” in other laws, like the Dictionary Act. He called a corporation “simply a form of organisation used by human beings to achieve desired ends”. He observed that religious non-profit organisations are already granted religious exemptions… so, why not for-profit businesses?

I can see where this is going. Hobby Lobby’s owners are extremist “Evangelicals”… the next thing is that they’ll demand an abstinence declaration from their employees based on “religious liberty”. The “Evangelicals” are in no way Traditional Christians, they have little (if anything) in common with us, and this case points that up. Look at what the Church teaches… V A Chaplin reiterated it here… and look at what the Hobby Lobby pukes demand. There’s nothing that we hold in common with these godless and god-denying sectarians (they deny the sacraments, the liturgy, the whole canon of Holy Scripture, the priesthood, and Tserkovnost, after all). This legal case is just another illustration of that. Single-payer is the way to go, as Vermont showed with Dr Dynasaur. All the parents in Vermont love it. These Affluent Effluent greedsters simply wish to treat their employees like marionettes, and we shouldn’t allow them to do that. Their so-called “Religious Liberty” is a licence for religious persecution… I’ll say that loud n’ proud. I’m on the other side of the barricades from the theomachistic “Evangelicals” and I’m handin’ out the AKs, RPGs, flamethrowers, coshes, and axe handles out back… hey, we lefties know how to use ‘em too. Have a care… there be evil people out there… and most of ‘em dress up in “religious vesture”… the ones with the biggest smiles are the biggest assholes. Keep your wits about you…

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