Right Wing Noise: Obama's 'Boston aunt' isn't News

There isn't any 'news' in the story about Obama's relation in Boston (the lady is daughter of Obama's Kenyan grandfather by his third wife), as this was public knowledge months ago.

I've been interested in tracking our national conversation over the past few weeks and in understanding why Americans have been subjected to so much really stupid stuff in the papers and TV.

The track followed to make this right-wing noise into a 'news' story that everyone is forced to cover or else is WAY more interesting than anything in the story itself.

1) Republican party operatives 'find the story' on 10/29/08. (GatewayPundit, FreeRepublic, BlogsForJohnMcCain etc).

2) On 10/30/08, Rupert Murdoch's London Times posts to the WWW and physically prints it. We've made a legitimate 'newsprint'. Sometimes Rupert runs stuff thru his Australia outlet if it needs a few more hours to percolate.

3) The Unification Church outlets (Korean 'Moonies') put it on the UPI wire. This feeds their newspapers in the Mideast, Orient, & Washington DC. Sun Myung Moon & Murdoch rarely disagree on anything, and their media outlets mirror each other's reporting.

4) Drudge Report links to story 2 or 3 if tipped off, as he was in this case and the one with the backwards B in the cheek; otherwise, he links to 5

5) Next it hits My Way News-AP and Breitbart.com, followed by Reuters, AP-Google, AP-Yahoo!, McClatchy, etc. What's really, really sad is to find the Wall Street Journal in this loop now...

6) Once on all of these wire services, Fox News hands out talking points and covers it. For 'breaking news', they'll give it to Hannity or O'Reilly; otherwise, it's a screen scrawl for a while and then a featured story.

SO...when I googled "Obama aunt Boston" this morning, I found 1765 news stories, 3480 blog entries, and 213,000 total general web hits. That poor girl!

Once Murdoch decides to have an opinion on something, he monopolizes our national conversation. Why do you think he became an American citizen? (Hint: It certainly wasn't love of the American free press, and it rhymes with 'holler'!!!) We have manufactured a story that everyone must now cover, even if there's no 'news' in the 'news story', & those who want to talk about it can complain if others refuse to discuss the noise. I believe the term used is 'liberal bias' if the propaganda isn't treated as a news-worthy current event, which is rather silly since liberals and progressives have gotten most of their news on-line for a decade or more. What conservatives call the MSM reflect the interests of their corporate owners and most closely resemble any other closely-held monopolies; the only TV news left is on PBS and CSpan.

The propaganda problem isn't as bad on the left since most gave up on MSM, which is controlled by only 7 corporations, a long time ago. The on-line rumor-mongerers have mostly been drummed out as advertising revenue grows with a good reputation. Most progressives and young people, as I already said, have gotten their news on line for a decade.

The reason that Bill O'Reilly & friends are losing to MS-NBC, people like CNN's Blitzer, Brown, and AC360 is that they've finally stopped letting idiots set the agenda & have started running news again. Welcome back, news guys: literate people missed you! We're finally rid of Glen Beck, so maybe we can finally rid ourselves of Nancy Grace, Lou Dobbs, and the rest of those who are merely polluting the airwaves.

For anyone interested in tracking stories like these around the world, there's a computer program monitoring the news run by the European common market commission at:

http://press.jrc.it/NewsBrief/clusteredition/en/latest.html

The Church should Condemn the Rhythm Method

Miracles come from unexpected sources and in mysterious ways. We must be mindful that God is much bigger than we are, and The Lord's ways are not our ways. To cite only two examples, from the Catholic heretics of the Protestant Reformation came the great gift of nearly universal education and literacy; from the Reign of Terror and anti-theocratic ideas of the Enlightenment came American ideas of inalienable rights and social mobility.

The Lord's garden has both the lily and the rose: both must be nurtured; both are His work and essential to his plan.

I welcomed the USCCB Rigali-Murphy joint statement of October 21, 2008,(http://www.usccb.org/prolife/Rigali-Murphy-Joint-Statement.pdf ) a two-page letter in clear and simple language outlining items of interest to Catholic voters. To claim one is only a Catholic if focused on the legal issue (Roe vs Wade) is as misguided as concentrating only on the pragmatic side of supporting universal health care, family leave, etc. and other social justice concerns involved in abortion and other important issues. Neither political party is a "Catholic" political party, and there are "cafeteria Catholics" on both sides of every issue I have examined.

I would never try to teach an atheist about Eucharist by simply stating that the bread is the body of Our Lord. When one side sees "clumps of cells" while the other sees a "child", simply repeating these definitions to each other moves no one. Will perceptions change if the law changes? The Bishops claim that they will; I tend to doubt it. Is it effective to mis-represent scientific facts that are objectively verifiable, as I've seen too often in pro-life literature? My experience with my own teenage boys contradicts that, as adolescents think in black/white terms and will reject the whole cloth. Those who advocate our position must give accurate, even-handed, and objective voice to facts; then we can open the moral eyes to see the substance and the fruit of the policy positions. Only then do we have a chance to change perceptions and so change public opinion.

My own opinion is that no perceptions will change on social issues, nor will the moral authority of our bishops be restored, until the Catholic Church condemns the rhythm method of birth control. How can it be moral to have sexual intercourse during the woman's infertile periods? This claim denies the biology of God's design, perpetuates myths about seed and field that deny the procreative power The Lord has given to women, and debases sexual union to a bodily function where the passions are wastes to be eliminated.

We had the fight about Mother Mary centuries ago: she isn't just the "Christ-Bearer", she is the "Mother of God". (My reading indicates that the 1968 encyclical on contraception was promulgated by the Pope and reactionary Curia against the best consensus of the committees of bishops and theologians most educated on the issue. I see it more as a conservative backlash against Vatican II than against the Pill, the women's movement, or any of the stated issues.)

Some might claim that my problem is that I am not well-enough versed in JP2's Theology of the Body...Well, as I waded through texts and listened to lectures, I concluded that he wasn't talking about any person that I knew, including myself. St. Augustine's Confessions seemed to reflect daily life better.

Should the Church reject the rhythm method as being contrary to God's design of the human body, perhaps we can also come to understand that we are in the midst of a revolution of science, changing ideas and science about sexuality--and biological science in general--that exactly parallel that of astronomy and physics in the previous centuries.

Can't we embrace facts first, and then guide people's moral choices? Let's begin the discussion at the beginning, by rejecting the first great mistake in our discussion of spacing births within marital life.

Open letter to Bishop DeWane of the Diocese of Venice

His Excellency Frank DeWane

Bishop of the Diocese of Venice

Excellency:

I am a widow with two sons, losing my husband to cancer when they were 3 and 5. My older boy is now at DePaul, a financial sacrifice I am happy to bear.

When you first were elevated, I had great hopes because of your background in social justice issues at the United Nations. (You may remember my email at that time explaining how our farmworkers and construction laborers are victimized by our tax code.) I was encouraged as you moved to educate our priests against those embracing the anti-Catholic immigration policy rhetoric that is endemic down here. I was very hopeful after hearing you speak on pro-life issues at your first pro-life mass St. Andrew's, emphasizing the importance of support programs like Projects Gabriel to lessen the very real economic hardships we ask women to shoulder in choosing life over abortion. The homily for your mass at St John Neumann's that year was so good that my older boy actually listened and we discussed your comments that evening.

I was very pleased to read this years' USCCB Faithful Citizenship paper, finally recognizing that there are many sins in our culture that our votes as citizens must address.

Do you remember the parable of the disobedient son? Those who actually do Our Lord's will have not been those who agree with us with their lips while destroying us with their policies. I am not so pleased that once again I am threatened with excommunication because I refuse to support liars trying once again to manipulate the Catholic vote. Scripture reminds us again and again that we will know good from evil not by listening but by looking to the fruit. How many years will our bishops demand we eat rotten fruit?

Our Lord said in John 23: "They tie up heavy burdens ³ (hard to carry) and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them."

I demand more prophetic speech of our Catholic leaders. Stop taking the easy way out.

I'm a Catholic firmly committed to voting Democratic this year. I recognize my Lord's voice, and will not be confused by those crying "Lord, Lord" with their lips while murdering our children by abortion and war with their policies.

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From the Naples Daily News today:

I, too, am a pro-life Catholic. That is one of the three main reasons why I am voting for Obama.

Many young couples face doctor & hospital bills for pregnancy that are more than half of their take home pay for a year. More families than ever have no insurance & don't qualify for help. When I was a corporate controller twenty years ago, the cost of adding maternity benefits to our health plan was a scandal, and it's gotten worse. Pregnancy issues consume nearly half our annual national health bill, with care for chronic conditions the balance.

I'm sick to death of GOP lip service to Catholics and the insistence of our bishops that overturning Roe vs Wade is essential despite fact that the issue is primarily an economic one. Even in the Philippines, Australia, and Mexico are liberalizing the law because people finally got sick of all the dead women and fetuses thrown in the trash. Women murder their children when they have neither hope or help to bear them; 85% of abortions here in the USA are for economic reasons.

We must take the health care burden off families. Our businesses need this burden lifted as well to be competitive in the world market and give us some hope of keeping a strong dollar.

Second, I'm voting Obama to restore our world reputation and our military standards that McCain's policies would continue to trash! Our young men and women are being abused by the GOP. We now let skinhead racists and people with criminal records into the army.

By most standards, we're already a second-rate for quality of life, health statistics, education... Today the AP reported that al-Qaida hopes McCain is elected so that they can further their agenda of bankrupting the USA and reducing our voice on the world stage to a third-rate nation. Remember, it worked in Afghanistan to destroy communist Russia, their competitor in the oil market.

Lastly, I'd like to remind my fellow Italians and our Jewish neighbors that our grandparents weren't "white" either in the 1920s and the same screams of "socialist" were hurled at them. Edgar J Hoover of the FBI and other racists said the same thing of us when we pulled together as a nation in the 1960s for civil rights. DO ALL OF YOU HAVE ALZHEIMERS????

When one party declares war on more than half of America, each one of us has the responsibility to stand up and denounce them.

The place we do that is the ballot box, with a vote for Barack Obama.

Silly Sam: the guy who is NOT Joe and NOT a plumber

I've about had it with Silly Sam. You know who I mean: the guy who isn't Joe, isn't a plumber, has no brain between his ear and his mouth, who SHOULD vote for Obama this year but doesn't know enough to understand why. Yeah, THAT Silly Sam.

Let us review:

A really dumb guy named Samuel, who listens to way too much right-wing radio, stops throwing football in his front yard to wander over and, according to his own admission at the time, bait Obama. He feeds Barack a passel of lies in order to spout right-wing BS about how Obama's policies will hurt him.

Facts are, Obama explains patiently and politely, that his policies would actually help 'Joe' save enough money to actually do what the lying jerk claims he wants to do. Further, he tries to help thedolt understand that his policies will help small businesses in general, since all of their CUSTOMERS will have higher disposable incomes. By giving more money to those at the bottom, i.e. 'spreading the wealth around' instead of concentrating it at the top, small business would see higher sales figures and ultimately greater profits.

What did I miss here?




Why in the world does McCain take this Silly Sam as his poster child, I mean, what credence does this dude give to anybody about anything McCain espouses? What 'socialism' have to do with any of this? Why would anyone listen to Silly Sam more than once? Why am I supposed to care about any of this?

I've never seen or heard more totally stupid stuff than I've heard during this election cycle.

2 Thoughts On Amendment 2: Property & Progeny, Widows & Orphans

(I'm not done with this post, but I'll revise it when I have more time.)

I decided to vote 'no' on the Florida "Marriage Protection" Amendment 2. In so deciding, I think I'm going to 'think out loud' on two main thoughts that others may find helpful. My first concern is the legitimate place (Property & Progeny) for the government in defining 'marriage' at all; the second addresses my concerns as a Christian (Widows & Orphans).

Property & Progeny

Don't some people change the subject when discussing Amendment 2 and laws defining 'marriage'? My impression is that we are unintentionally clouding the issues for voters by confusing issues appropriate to the government and the law with other important ideas that don't have much to do with either one.

There's a reason that the term 'married couples' is often synonymous with 'household'. Historically, romance and sex have had very little to do with civic ideas of marriage; in fact, those ideas were joined together fairly recently in both social practice and the law. Marriage has always been more prevalent among the wealthy, who were concerned with cleanly passing control of property from one generation to the next. Even today, young people tend to marry when they want to 'settle down', i.e. to buy a house or have children together. With changes in income and the advent of effective birth control, Floridians marry later in life if they marry at all; many young people stay for years with relatives, 'shack up' with a lover, or live with roommates until their late 20s. Discussions of the religious dimensions of matrimony tend more to obscure than illuminate the issues we face as voters.

The state's legitimate concerns in defining 'marriage' are regulation of property* and progeny.
The former is important because of taxes. We tax real estate, personal property, businesses, etc. Establishing kinship relationships either through blood (birth certificates) or social contracts (marriage licenses, divorce decrees, probate of wills) is important in determining who is responsible to pay what taxes. Florida also has legitimate interests in those who cannot support themselves, and all minor children fall into this category. The taxpayer cares for them when no one else does, in addition to the elderly, those once called 'feeble-minded', the infirm, and those who are unable to support themselves because of addiction or other mental illnesses. This is expensive, and the state has an interest in regulating relationships in order to shift these responsibilities to individuals.

Our legal and tax structures are set up around the typical household. Some want the structure to reflect the diverse arrangements that our citizens live, while others want to promote a proven model social structures that successfully raises competent adults. So, we should stop screaming at each other and recognize that the argument is between realists and idealists.

There's no objection on the property issues: no one seems to want to deny anyone rights of kinship for owning property, for powers of attorney-type issues in health care, etc. The objections center on the claim that some households are not suitable for raising children. Finally, the state mandates education in order to have a trained workforce and capable electorate. Values will always be taught implicitly in our schools, since understanding history, civics, and our laws always involves teaching the our ideals: the American dream.
In reading the amendment, my impression is that many quasi-marriage arrangements will be affected that already lack minimal protection under the law; the text is designed specifically to bar homosexual couples from enjoying the rights and privileges of kinship. Younger people seem to be less concerned about regularizing homosexual couples than their elders.

Our laws about marriage date from the period when birth control was uncommon and ineffective when it wasn't illegal. When I started working just before the feminist movement, it was very difficult for females to support themselves. women were more likely to refuse to have sex and risk bearing children to those who would not support their kids.
Our kinship and household laws so locating those who abdicate their responsibilities to them at state expense.

Defining 'marriage' is important to the state of Florida because they need to find taxpayers to pay taxes and criminals who abandon their responsibilities to taxpayers' expense.

Widows and Orphans

Being rich--i.e. our decisions are 'what or where shall we eat?' instead of 'will we eat today?'--we sometimes make snap decisions out of innocent, well-meaning ignorance that hurt the poor and vulnerable. Christians should consider the effect of any law on 'widows and orphans' in the Biblical sense.

The ancient Biblical theocracy--a government like Iran, where the laws of the religion are the laws of the courts--used 'widows and orphans' to describe those most likely to be the poor. When we hear those words today, the image in our mind's eye should be single parents, citizens with special needs, the elderly, children (whether currently living in traditional homes or not), and the chronically ill.

Historically, those most likely to be married have always been the wealthy. The same is true today. Many citizens live in common law relationships rather than in households licensed by the state. Marriages, divorces, and adoptions cost money and our poorest neighbors often forgo all three.

Children today often live with both natural parents for only a brief period because more are born out of wedlock, adults marry later in life when they do marry, and our country has a high divorce rate. Many families' individual members are neither tied by blood, nor protected by law. Elderly widows dependent upon their first husband's pension can't remarry; some of the 2nd relationships last longer than the first legal marriage.

I think more people will be hurt by the wording in this amendment that I did at first. Passing Amendment 2 may do more harm to our families than good.



We can rarely do just one thing. The amendment's language is very broad, and voters can't easily see all of the consequences of formalizing the definition.

Florida has a legitimate interest in making sure that the next generation of citizens, our children, are raised to be healthy and well-educated taxpayers, and the question of who pays their bills is important since the state has to when no one else can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Yes, I know: laws about kids have an ownership component so it's all just property. Well, some nations of the world still let men own their wives, too, and even though we changed most of our laws in the U.S. with women's suffrage and the feminist movement, I don't mean to imply that there aren't more than a few remaining items on women's agenda.

Christian Code Words called 'Race-Baiting'? - Obama 1995 video

Some people have been listening to hate speech for so long that they can no longer hear and recognize code words for Christian ethics and Gospel values. (Sigh)

The URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7fi8STNlxM points to a video in which Barack Obama is quoted discussing policy problems in Christian terms of "sacrifice" and "salvation"... and the heading someone put on it is: "1995 Obama Bizarre, Race Baiting Interview Found! HE MUST SAVE BLACKS SO HE CAN BE SAVED". Here's one of the blogs that goes on like this as well: Gateway Pundit: 1995 Obama Race Baiting Video Discovered I'd find it funny that they think this video is "race-baiting", if it weren't so sad.

I don't object to anything that Obama says in this video, because I have heard nearly every word from the ambo in our Catholic churches. I was briefly a fan of Ayn Rand, too, but that was when I was a little kid and an active agnostic. I even wrote a paper ranting about her ideas for a political philosophy class at Northwestern. Thirty years later and a practicing Catholic, I find her economics juvenile and her moral position an insult to God.

Obama's remarks about taxes reflect Christian ethics. Our talents are given to us by God; they're unearned gifts of the Almighty. We are expected--no, I should say that God DEMANDS that we use His gifts to the greatest profit possible...recognizing that the fruits belong to HIM. Taxes that ask each individual to sacrifice according to ability is a Christian idea. The widow's mite is a greater sacrifice to her than a chestful of gold from a wealthy Pharisee who never even feels its loss. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THIS!!!

The basic idea of public education is that we ALL benefit when everyone fulfills their potential and becomes a good citizen. I'm a 51-year-old white woman, and I totally agreed with Michelle Obama's statement about how disappointed we all have been for years as the American Dream was soiled by virulent self-interest... SHAME ON ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THIS!!!

The 'American Dream' is dead because the playing field is no longer level. Social mobility is now a sham: you can only get into Harvard now if you are a legacy (i.e. if your parents did). If you come from modest means, it is now all but impossible to do better than your parents did and you will most probably do worse. I felt like a liar when I tried to tell school children that if they worked hard in America, they could have a good life. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THIS!!!

When Obama says that his "individual salvation" will not come about without a "collective salvation", he reflects the Greatest Commandment: we cannot really love God if we don't love & care for our neighbor. We can't be a "Christian country" or a moral people when we spit on the common good and grab whatever we can for ourselves, like those strapping, armed men in Haiti grabbing relief supplies from the arms of starving women and children. Not everyone who calls "Lord, Lord" will get into heaven, but only those who actually do the work of the Father... SHAME ON ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THIS!

This would be funny if it weren't so sad...

So, am I excommunicated or not? I'm an official Catholic Democrat

Many of those I love believe that I have excommunicated myself from the Catholic Church.

On Sept 18, 2008, after careful consideration, I gave $50 to Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency of the United States of America. That same day, I joined the Catholic Democrats. I made these decisions after carefully weighing the policies, actions, and characters of those involved. I am a regular reader of NCR on line, I subscribe to America Commonweal and Sojourners magazines, I read regularly at usccb.org vatican.va and my own diocese website regularly. I made my decision after reviewing Canon Law, prayerful consideration, and examination of conscience. I think I made the right decision, and will vote early next week.

I am a Roman Catholic, baptized as an infant and educated through 8th grade in Catholic schools. I left the Church completely from roughly 1976 to 1985, living as an agnostic secular humanist. When I left, everything I could hear the Church saying and all that I could see the Church doing contradicted most conclusions of own life experience.

My return to the Church started when when I was given a second chance to live at all. I experienced a frightening, sudden illness, and then an unlikely chain of events started that has led me closer and closer to God. I was reconciled to the Catholic Church very suddenly: shortly after moving in with the man who would be my husband, while driving home from work I was called to walk into a the local parish church. A priest was standing there in the vestibule as if he were waiting for me to come home. I did.

I've tried to do as I'm told ever since, and have been guided and reassured always that I am doing as I should. When I have stumbled, I have confessed and learned. When I have done what I should, I have endured the spit of some and the gratitude of others. Few know who I am; fewer know what I do and this really suits me since I value my privacy so much. Now, I'm writing publicly and I know that things will get much worse. We all must do the best we can, and then accept the consequences as we must.

My family has been greatly blessed, and I am particularly grateful to the intercession of Sts Therese & Teresa, Joseph & Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, and of Sts. Anthony of the Desert and of Padua who are patrons of both my mother's family and my father's. I try to be obedient, including giving up everyone and everything I know to come to the strange Paradise that is Naples, FL.

The Lord has had need for a widow with two orphan boys, and I have tried to be mindful of His will. I've seen the works of His hand: MIGHTY ARE HIS DEEDS! May the Lord grant me the courage and humility to serve Him in words now as well as actions.