Kudos: Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham telling it like it is
It may have been a first.
In what may have been the first time ever on a major television outlet, two popular TV personalities finally revealed that the media's never-ending obsession with decades-old episodes in the Church actually has nothing to do with the abuse of children and everything to do with the Catholic Church standing in firm opposition to the media's radical, secularist worldview.
A discussion starts with two
Radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham joined host Bill O'Reilly last Thursday on The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel to talk about how the news of the Pope's resignation has simply been used as an excuse by the media to once again rehash claims of sex abuse in the Church from 40 and 50 years ago.
O'Reilly, the highest rated host on cable news, opined that the media's hammering of the Church about old abuse claims is, in reality, "all abortion-driven." He added:
"The American media in general worships at the altar of 'reproductive rights,', and the primary driver against abortion is the Catholic Church, and that's what this is all about."
Ingraham built upon O'Reilly's premise, agreeing that the media's salacious coverage of sex abuse is only a pretext to attack the Church for it not kowtowing to the media's secularist worldview:
"Yes, the scandals were horrific and horrible, and the Catholic Church paid dearly and victims were victimized. It was horrific thing. At the same time, I think if all of that had never happened, the same people who are criticizing the Catholic Church today would [still] be criticizing the Catholic Church."
Ingraham cautioned the elites in the media to be careful what they wish for when incessantly attacking the Church:
"[The media] … disagrees with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and I understand that. But enormous good is done by the Catholic Church around the world. And I would just say [that] if the Catholic Church went away tomorrow, there would be a lot of children, a lot of elderly people, a lot of indigent, a lot of people needing hospital care, compassionate care, who would have no one look out for them and have no one to protect them. So be careful what you wish for."
Kudos to O'Reilly and Ingraham for finally stating the obvious. Here is the video of the segment from The O'Reilly Factor:
I don't like O'Reilly at times but he hit this one out of the park.
Good work!
In general, they hit it out of the park, but specific to each abuse case, not entirely because the Cardinals and Papal Nuncia's who knew about allegations, including Maciel of the Legion of Christ, and cases that could have been tried for years and years…. did not do so under JPII because he apparently did not want to lose priests that easily. Wonderful of Pope Benedict to demand that the truth be told, and in fact he is still telling the Cardinals to do so regarding financial issues, etc., in retirement. Going after Maciel, the one who sinned, is different than going after the Legion of Christ, and Pope Benedict recognized this in his communications, thankfully. A truly magnificent Holy Father!
Sadly the mainstream media has become the prime enemy of the USA and what it stands for. They commit most of their damage through omission. If Abrahm Lincoln had been resurrected he could not have beaten Barack Obama. The Catholic Church is the biggest enemy of the secular press because it sets boundaries and says NO.
Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, I never knew this:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=700018
It’s been interesting to see the American media coverage of the upcoming conclave. The American mainstream media (MSM) are mostly concerned about the sex-abuse Matter and in great part the American cardinals are quoted only about whatever they have to say about the sex-abuse Matter. The result is that undiscerning readers can easily get the impression that all the American cardinals are thinking about is the sex-abuse Matter and that the entire conclave will revolve around the sex-abuse Matter. (Yes, it’s very possible that the American cardinals have been advised to make sure they say the right things about the sex-abuse Matter for American interviewers.)
Also, one would get the impression from the American MSM that the conclave will largely occupy itself with the sex-abuse Matter because such huge changes have to be made in order to deal with it. But I don’t think that’s actually the case at all. As I mentioned in a recent comment, I think that the only major shift has to be in hierarchy and clergy taking a more proactive stance toward the integrity of their ministry in this regard; the image of the State medical Board and the practitioners and providers-of-care (individually and collectively) is apt here: all Board personnel and practitioners have to be concerned for the quality of the care they provide.
The best way to do this, of course, would be for hierarchy and clergy to intensify their aliveness to the vital and serious core of their spiritual ministry of the Church/Gospel message. ‘Abuse’ of any sort can only creep into a vacuum; and if the life of the hierarchy and clergy are so filled with a serious and zealous Sensus of their calling and their mission, then there will be far less of a vacuum into which anything else can seep.
As always, concern for genuine victims should be given useful shape; but – as always – the genuine victims have first to be certifiably distinguished from persons who are otherwise.
That won’t of itself prevent the type of almost-ridiculous fabrications being made and treated with a straight face as we are still seeing in Philadelphia. But if the MSM back off their strong (and utterly indispensable) support for this type of scamming, then the air will go out of these balloons quickly enough.
The ideas that comprise the secular-liberal agenda have always been around; for the past 40 years they have been embraced root-and-branch by the Democratic Party (see below in this comment) and it has been the wholehearted embrace of those ideas and that agenda by the government itself (rather than, say, the inherent value or quality of the ideas themselves) that has helped create the ‘perfect storm’ of the Catholic Abuse Matter.
But even then, it took the embrace of all that by the MSM to really give the whole Matter wide public amplification. (Yes, over the course of the decades of this gambit the internet and the Webverse have also come along and expanded, bringing their hugely variable and variously reliable and unreliable commenting. But without major MSM support, nothing would be sufficient to sustain this Matter as it has been sustained for 30 years now.)
For readers so inclined, I can strongly recommend a look at the short and readable 1971 book entitled Changing Sources of Power: American Politics in the 1970s, by the California Democratic lawyer and political adviser Frederick G. Dutton.
In 1971 Dutton urged the Democratic Party to abandon the New Deal-era blue-collar industrial workers of the great urban industrial cities: their philosophy (and, by implication, religion) was one of self-denial and strictness, based on the culture of Scarcity they had experienced in the Great Depression (of the 1930s). But now – 1971 – America was a nation of Abundance, blessed (as he saw it) with a vigorous youth generation that was eager to have it all, impatient of any delay, and (with what Dutton saw as perfect justification) rightly insistent upon a politics more totally and immediately responsive to their demands for ‘fulfillment’ in this-world. Away, then, with fuddy-duddy and old-school concerns for boundaries and old beliefs and superstitions, and let the Party embrace with the Boomer young a fresh (if still-fuzzily envisioned) future where Youth and American Abundance would create their own justifications and their own ‘future’.
And – I would add – ride with the Boomer Young into the marvelous warm and sunny and still-Abundant sunshine and economic prosperity that was still California’s in those days. I sometimes wonder what would have happened to Boomer-ism if they hadn’t had that vision and ‘certainty’ of Southern California with its great weather and seemingly inexhaustible economic possibilities. TV and movies soused them with that illusion. You only have to look at 1968’s “The Graduate”: there’s college-grad Dustin Hoffman, floating around in the family pool in SoCal, bored and feeling sorry for himself, unwilling to go to grad school or get a job (he could always get one when he wanted one), andfinally filling up the void in his life with a girl with whom he elopes (from the altar where she is still in her wedding dress, to be married to another guy)and the movie ends with the two of them in the back seat of a city-bus, she still in her wedding dress, heading down a SoCal street into that marvelous if somewhat hazy SoCal afternoon light. And the whole thing accompanied by that marvelous Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack.
Dutton – born in the early 1920s, died in 2005 – was a classic example of the generation that hadn’t seen WW1, had grown up in the Depression and gone through WW2 and the ‘boring’ 1950s, only to reach middle-age (50 back then was pretty much late-middle-age) and find that a whole new generation of Youth had come along and was numerous and monied enough to change – so it seemed – the rules and structures of the American reality. (Although it wasn’t the Boomers who ‘went to the moon’ in 1969; it was the generations of hard-working ‘drudges’ that preceded them who made that possible.)
Anyhoo, to read Dutton is to realize that even back then, more than 40 years ago, a major ‘thinker’ (‘strategizer’ would be more like it) in the Democratic Party was already urging the Party to abandon self-discipline and any sense of the Beyond and go with the ‘kids’ in all their various giddy excitements, vague illuminations, and impatient demands. Because the kids would create a whole new ‘reality’ and nothing was going to stop it.
And Dutton didn’t even consider – because it hadn’t quite yet happened – the role of a radicalized feminism that would adopt Marxist and Leninist social and political Thought and Method, thus attacking not only American politics but also culture (and the Grounds and Bounds and Shape imparted to that culture and society by religion and the Beyond). And some of whose adherents, even from within, would seek to apply those anti-‘oppression’ tropes to the life of the Church herself.
In the following year, 1972 – some readers may recall – the Democrats took Dutton’s advice, hook-line-and-sinker. What had been embarrassing outbursts that almost wrecked the 1968 Democratic Convention became the breezy and brash dogma that took over the 1972 Democratic Convention (and has only intensified since then). No Scarcity, no Bounds, no Grounds, no Shapes – just a fantabulous plastic and infinitely malleable ‘future’, based – unthinkingly – on an ever-expanding economy of Abundance and lit by all that great California ‘light’ you saw in the background of all the movies and TV shows.
The Church – it is clear to any reader of Dutton’s book – had to be kicked to the curb along with the New-Deal ‘workers’ whose world-view had suddenly been made obsolete by the glorious ‘60s and the soon-to-be-even-more-glorious-‘70s. Because for long long before the Great Depression (the one in the 1930s) the Church had realized the moral Scarcity and unpredictability created in human history and life by Original Sinfulness and had been working toward a strong and abiding sense of Grounds and Bounds, for human beings whose primary ‘identity’ was anchored in their being created in the Image of God, under Whose guidance and judgment all humans made their way as best as could be done in a darkling and unpredictable world that was a long long way from the eternal Southern California summer-afternoon of Hollywood fliks and TV shows.
Thus – based on a illusory presumption of eternal and eternally-expanding this-worldly economic Abundance – the secular-liberal agenda was adopted by the Beltway and the Church suddenly became a major ‘rival’ to the new order of things, an oppressive opponent of what clearly was going to be the fantabulous 1970s and the rest of a great if gauzy and gooey future stretching on and on. Over such a vision – and the more mundane political advantages of ‘leading’ the kids into the surf to ride toward that vision – Dutton and the Dems would indeed go gaga.
But here we are, after 40 Biblical years of wandering, and instead of Dutton’s secular Promised Land we find ourselves in the deep desert, or at sea on a very dark and stormy and berg-strewn night.
The Bishops must find their voice – and the Gospel’s voice – and the Church must turn on her lights to guide and succor all those in peril on this sea.
A slight correction, It wasn't Hoffman's pool it was his parents pool. The point Buck Henry, the author, was making was about the confusion of the disenfranchised college grad as he/she faces the real world with nothing but a degree.
P.S. if humans were created in God's image why are we destroying the world and our selves, God's creations all, in the name of God; Country and Capitalism?
Laura Ingram may be "fallun". But I'm not fallen' for her s*%t
After all being on Bill O'Really would be a low in anybodies career. Unless he booted you off.
It's really like a field day for people with no manners and not much common sense either. Because those people are basicly telling the world who's being attacked and who isn't. And lying, actually lying for the perps. If you protect the hierarchs you are protecting those who are perps themselves. And as much as the Church needs a good purge. Gay priests will be blamed by probably gay priests for the whole mess.When Gay priests did on the whole nothing.
But tear yourselves to pieces if you want to.
But
the minute you do real justice by victims is the minute all your problems will go away
A little bit more along the path of my prior comment.
In the first decades of the 19th century, America saw a number of efforts made to form ‘communities’ on the part of various persons inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism (a non-religious form of the already de-Godded religion of Unitarianism).
Brook Farm, just outside Boston, was started up in 1841 on a 200-acre farm. As its founder – George Ripley – wrote to Emerson: “Our objects, as you know, are to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor than now exists, to continue the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual”. Thus members of this ‘community’ would adhere to the principle of cooperation in social matters instead of competing; and would seek “individual un-folding in the faith that the whole soul of humanity is in each man and woman”. Self-development and spiritual growth would be the objectives of the membership.
(Slyly, Emerson always avoided getting directly mixed-up in any of these ‘community’ projects, staying safe and cozy in his Concord manse at a safe distance from the various ‘experiments’ that his vaguely grand aphoristic thoughts ignited.)
There was no religious faith involved, but neither was there any sort of socialistic master plan that would completely reorganize the actual lives of the members.
Yet while the place attracted a small but eager bunch of middle-class types looking for enlightenment and self-development, none of them could actually do much of a practical nature and the project could never support itself economically.
Then in the mid-1840s, in the middle of a national economic crisis, they tried to reorganize along the lines of the French thinker Fourier: you can determine the best form for a society according to a set of mathematical calculations, and by combining enough of various types of people with assorted necessary skills you could organize all of their social and cultural and sexual relationships such that all of their human potentials could be fulfilled without the oppressive constraints of “civilization” as it was conventionally imagined. Fourier particularly emphasized sexual liberation – meaning some early-Victorian version of a sexual philosophy to the left of Whoopeeee.
The experiment barely lasted a year.
Meanwhile, not too far up Route 2 in Harvard, Mass., another utopian experimental community was set up, the marvelously-monnikered “Fruitlands”. This was a place for idealists who thought Brook Farm not ideal enough. They would create a community designed for self-sufficient living reduced to the most basic needs in order to allow everybody to focus on personal growth and spiritual fulfillment (thus on personal reform, rather than social or cultural reform).
It would be a “consociate family”, in the words of its founder Bronson Alcott. There would be a strict ascetic regime, seeking the utmost simplicity of life in diet, clothing, and (required) bathing. So no meat, eggs, butter or milk, nor tea nor molasses or coffee or rice – and “our sole beverage is pure fountain water”. There would be a daily order of work and reflection, starting with getting-up at dawn and taking a cold bath, and whatever pleasures meals might afford.
But nobody knew how to run or sustain a farm. Master-sage Emerson came out to have a look, nodded sagely, and said “They look well in July; we shall see them in December”. As things turned out, they just made it to January (1844) and called it quits.
There had been Robert Owen’s New Harmony experiment that lasted from 1825 to 1828; Brook Farm somehow held together from Spring 1841 to Fall 1847.
And even before Emerson, there was the Nashoba community in Tennessee founded by the Scots social reformer and feminist Frances Wright. She conceived it as a community that seek the fullness of personal development but would also farm in order to raise money to buy the freedom of enslaved blacks. But somehow the ethos of the community also morphed into “unconstrained and unrestrained choice in sexual relations” since – in her view – the institution of marriage was a “tyranny” (and form of enslavement, itself). Nashoba lasted for four years.
And yet – as well – there were religious communities of various types (the Rappites, the Shakers, the Amana colonies, the Oneida community) that managed to last much longer.
It strikes me that the communities that were non- or anti-religious didn’t last, despite their high-flown and laudable objectives and goals.
And yet they seem to have been envisioned so very much like monastic communities – except without God. Which leads me to think that if you are going to have a sufficient motivation to really face the challenges of life, then you need something more than laudable this-worldly objectives to get you out of your bed in the morning and keep you out of other beds at night. You need a relationship with some Beyond. Secularism – no matter how high-flown the goals – just isn’t enough to Ground and sustain (and Boundary) a human life’s energies and vitalities.
And there was also a profound and dynamic dichotomy at the core of all these efforts: on the one hand you were going to fully develop your mind and soul, but on the other hand you were going to kick free from all the constraints and oppressions of “civilization” (and, but of course, religion). Such an active fracture at the very foundation of the project virtually guaranteed that it would start coming apart at speed and under pressure.
Lastly, while we can perhaps smile at these various personal and small-group efforts to try and live such a life, yet in the 19th century such experiments could be conducted among willing (as few as they were) participants. But what we see in this country after 1971 – in no small part under the inspiration of Frederick Dutton’s strategy – and later under the combined pressure of a Marxist analysis-of and attack-on culture and society under the aegis of radical feminism (and even, to some extent, Liberation Theology), is a governmental embrace of such whackness and the consequent effort to impose it on the entire country under the authority of the government and the self-proclaimed cutting-edge elites of the day.
Emerson himself – taking Thomas Jefferson’s Deist proclivities further than Jefferson had ever dared to go – sought in effect a Christianity without Christ or God; it was H. Richard Niebuhr who put it as “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross”. (You can look him up, if you like, on Wiki for more; his books are worth the read even more than his older brother Reinhold’s, in my opinion.)
For Emerson, human beings held “divinity” within themselves, in their own energies and vitalities, and “religion” simply got in the way and indeed actively obstructed their “fulfillment”. (Does any of this sound queasily familiar in the Year of Grace Two-Thousand-and-Thirteen?) Emerson himself was a family man and wasn’t too wrapped up with sex, but that simply goes to show that his thought didn’t really encompass a full or even sufficient appreciation of the complex darknesses and primal human vitalities that always need more than ‘good intentions’ to keep them from running away with everything else. He was not, needless to say, a fan of Catholicism – not simply because of the type of immigrants that even in his own day were starting to flood over to this country, but because of the Church’s basic Stance to being-human in this-world.
So you can see, I think, that the Church is vitally needed in this country today. And that her hierarchy, clergy, religious, and laity must inform themselves sufficiently to realize just how urgent and vital the Church’s mission is today around here.
And these fake holymen are now putting your religion into question and into the public eye and that's according to you. Don't you know these people have to go. For the sake of your religion.
The fake holymen I refer to are the hierarchs not the other fake "holymen" at Fox news.
Jim I think we will get a conversion out of you yet bc that is where the truth leads,
Now that is a kinder and gentler attempt to control me, lol.
I do feel the kindness in your statement and as a fellow human appreciate that.,
After the many months I've spent posting here. I happened upon a small speech in a debate in England. The speaker is Stephen Fry. I would ask people to look at this speech and see if you see Jesus in Mr. Fry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L1xvdZMC10
But the fake "holy men and women" at Fox should go as well.
Why, in the name of God,would anyone believe Fox News about anything?
These are the very same people who were co conspiritors in the illegal invasion of Iraq , The illegal morgage frauds and the" legal" gutting of the Bill of Rights. Which both finiancially and morally bankrupted this country and major portions of the world.
O'Reilly, if you remember after 9/11 was one of the first to tell decent Americans to "shut up" about the invasion of Iraq and be good "patriots". An Illegal invasion in the Nazi tradition (Anyone remember what started WWII? [FYI Hitler's invasion of Poland]) Who needs truth or democracy when you've got "chicken hawk" Bill, another war monger like Bush and Cheany who never went to war themselves but sent you; your kids; or your neighbors kids to do their dirty work. Shock and Awe indeed, for Americans.
Jim
I didn't agree at all with the invasion of Iraq and it must be remembered the main opposition to the war came from Pope JPII (whose arguments against the war Prime Minister Tony Blair completely ignored), but to call it illegal is stretching it a bit.
Socialists have been spouting on for years in the UK that Blair is guilty of war crimes because it was an "illegal war", yet there is no court on earth that will try him or Bush as the only law they broke was made in the Court of public opinion.
Please don't keep on about an "illegal War" when clearly it wasn't, I know Socialists try to rewrite history and obliterate their own crimes but this really must stop.
Joe, all war should be considered illegal period. And those who start one should be isolated from the human community, siege like until those who started , which ever war, are ousted from control. And the U.S and British governments and Fox news would be first on my list.
The Iraq war is an illegal war because the "excuse" used to perpetrate the invasion and slaughter in Iraq was based on a lie. And lies are never legal unless your a Nazi.
Remember "sprouting mushroom clouds"? Remember "weapons of mass destruction" Remember "aluminum tubes from Africa"? Remember the "outing" of Valerie Plaine? Remember "Shock and Awe" ?
Have you been to a VA in the past 10 yrs to see, yet again, the basket cases that come home? Al from a completely unneccessary and illegal war.
Illegal because of precedents set at Nuremburg,by us, where the mucks of the Nazi government were tried for illegal invasion of other peoples lands and hung for it.
Where their acts were called war crimes, in my opinion a redundentcy because all war is criminal, period.
But regarding Iraq ,as in Viet Nam, the war criminals of our times, Bush ,Chaenny, Wolfewitz, Blair et all, just like Johnson, Nixon and Kissinger,will never see the inside of a court room or jail. Why? because "we" "won" our illegal wars or were still just to "powerful" to try before mankind.
The 'winners" always re-write history. That's what "winning" allows you to do. Just think how history would have been written, if Hitler won?
Think of the Japanese Nuremberg trial that would have been called on the U.S. for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the "evaporation" of the civilian populations of those cities.if Japan had "won".
And if humane decent public opinion isn't court enough for you to consider valid, why have any "illusion" of democracy as being important at all?.
Yes JPII did do right by opposing; the invasion of Iraq. Just as he did right in criticising capitalism and it's monsterous flaws; and his opposition to capitol punishment.
But he failed miserably by his attacks on Liberation Theology. His protection of pedophiles, Marciel and many others with the help of Ratzinger for over 20 years. His open hostillity towards women's leadership in the Church. Condom use to stop the spread of HIV ( It's awfully hard to be repentant and be forgiven for your sins if your dead) And wasn't his hostility to condom use basicly a death sentence for tens of thousands? Better a live sinner who could repent than a dead faithful follower.
Publion, Are you a college professor?
Julie,
If Publion is a college proessor, his reach is not wide enough!
Most college students could only handle the "Cliff Notes" of a Publion led lecture.
Hey…….maybe that is what we need!! If Publion created smaller, digestible
essays for the average thinker, with the option of reading the longer version (if interested
and/or capable) at least more individuals could absorb his perspective.
Julie, in 4 years at Oxford I never met any professor who came close to possessing Publion's grasp of world affairs and history. He makes Dicky Dawkins look like a New York Times columnist.
OK, perhaps that was a bit unfair. Dick may be a delusional hissy-fitter, but he's at least capable of joined-up thinking.
Clare, really at long last common sense is spoken. The Emperor is in the "all together". (Thank you Danny Kaye)
I frankly have never found Pub's diatribes had very much of a payoff if any at all. It's interesting if you see the Church as the center of everything maybe. I don't, so it hard trecking to get through. Not because he's not comprehensable to me but because there's nothing he's saying that couldn't be said more tersely. Which would be respecting the audience in my opinion. I notice he gets lengthier at certain times. Usually after I post. He refers to me as a gold mine, a cartoonist, mentally questionable. (He who is with out sin cast the first stone.). I refer to him as verbose.
He seems to enjoy going on and on but again to what end? Not much there there.
Julie, I've been to college but not a prof.
For those with a fundamentally incomplete grasp of Catholic thought: While humans are made in the Image of God, there is still the problem of Original Sinfulness, the ability – and predisposition – of humans to put their own visions and interests above their responsibilities to the Image of God in which they are created.
Original sin huh? Oh yea,I don't believe in original sin. If Adam and Eve did something wrong to the Gardener's favorite tree. Don't blame me. I didn't do it..
Ah, the old legends are always the goofyest.
Really Pub if your god is so omnipotent why not just "clear the decks" so to speak of all these un Catholic Protestant thinkers and make humanity's options a bit simpler. Or does it amuse "him" in some odd way to watch our struggles here. Like a sick boy burning ants with magnifying glass.
Well I really wanted to fill Laura Ingraham in on some things before she goes on in public about the Church and the scandals, like the fact that she should acknowledge without fear, that cases sat either with the papal nuncio of the US and/or with the Vatican for DECADES because JPII did not want to lose more priests over rumors. If she, and O'Rielly are true journalists they would say that Benedict finally allowed cases to be tried as they should have been, in some caes, 30 years ago. You DON'T kepp pulling the easy way out, and keep saying he "went after" the Legion of Christ as the primary example. What Benedict did, to his credit and for the improvement of the Church, is to make the Vatican do it's job in multitudes of cases where it did not. The more accurate and responsible thing to say is that he tried cases that were sitting, and if they had done this all along the gravity of the scandals on the Church would have had much less of an impact of lay people than it has had. Niether Bill or Laura are the experts on how the Church operates, and they do not have the knowledge on the truth of what happened. By the way, to contact Laura Ingraham costs money, you have to join her fan club with an annual fee. So there you go.
Elizabeth,
There is a wonderful new post: http://www.catholicleague.org/selective-victims-bill-resurrected
Perhaps if Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, and Bill O'Rielly and Laura interviewed
Margaret Markey and had a discussion about the disparate treatment of private
and public institutions, we could be done with these discussions and double up on
workouts or other activities. By the way, to work and own a home in this country
costs money (taxes), which we are ""required" to pay. So there you go.
What about the "cost" our wonderful pastors have had to pay? I never heard
them whine or complain once. What other group (other than our military) has
been so strong and unselfish? None.
Elizabeth so very well put. Thank you.
Perhaps Ellizabeth can enlighted me about the "cases' that the Church is accused of sitting on for decades. Does she really mean a " claim" lodged by a lawyer on behalf of a client. Or does she mean a "case" like a court case, one in due process or one concluded by the courts. Because the difference is of paramount importance to me, and other concerned people.
Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights basically says that none of us are guilty until a court actually convicts of the particular crime. 'innocent until proven guilty'. So I think you get my drift, a simple "claim" does not make the accused guilty. So it is understandable that these unproven "claims" may be pending awaiting more substantive evidence from the claimant. But if she means "cases" that have been proven in court then the Church becomes liable and a settlement is negotiated. Similar to a claim against a doctor for malpractice, with lots of negotiation, that can drag on for years. But am pretty sure she means an unproven "claim" from a lawyer. She thinks it is enough to accuse a priest to make him guilty, and the thought of his basic human rights, in article 11, would never cross her mind. But what about the alleged victims, don't they have rights too? Yes in my country they have the right to go to the police, and report the alleged crime. That is an unavoidable first step in the process of seeking justice. Many don't, and that makes me suspect that their evidence is very thin indeed. Which may explain the tardiness of the Church to pay out on these "claims", many of which are 'incredible' within the original meaning of that word.
Malc
March 11th.
May I also point out that before we can have any 'justice' (however defined) for victims, we have to figure out who are (and are not) genuine victims.
I also support TMR in recommending a look at Ralph Cipriano's still-ongoing and acute analysis of the second Philly trial.
I also note that even one of Mr. Cipriano's most consistent and coherent commenters – who is not at all pro-Church – has now begun criticizing the trials not because he is in any way pro-Church or pro-Archdioces of Philadelphia, but rather because he is against the obvious and clear and deep degradation and distortion of the justicial process in these cases.
My thoughts about Clare’s suggestion that I make shorter, more digestible essay-comments. First, it’s an idea that some friends have also made to me over the years, and Clare’s suggestion is one that I’ve thought about for a few years now.
But my thought is this: I am trying to ‘model’ a full thought process: define the issue, look at it from the conceptual angle and also any relevant history and current-events, and then draw what conclusions I think can be supported by the examination. This ‘full thought process’ is one that I think is sorely lacking nowadays even in more advanced circles, let alone in the type of internet commenting we so often see on the Web.
And, of course, there is the fact that large numbers of commenters – even some on this site – aren’t really clear on the distinction between a ‘conclusion’ and a mere ‘ungrounded assertion’. I get the clear and distinct impression that some commenters simply consider it a good day’s work to toss out short assertions and leave them hanging on the tree.
So with a recognition that my essay-comments are a bit of a job because of their length (I try not to let them be abstruse or rambling), I am going to generally continue on that path. (Clare has got me thinking I could break up paragraphs a bit more often, though, and I’m going to try that.)
Especially since I think a large part of the ‘universality’ of the Abuse Matter is that the ‘ungrounded assertion’ mode has been taken by way too many folks for some sort of useful and sufficient discourse about the Matter. And the mainstream media have gone down that path as well.
Lastly – and for what may be the last time – I will directly address the suddenly-baaaaaack-again ‘JR’. Since he has delivered himself of an assessment of me, I will state my assessment of his contributions clearly and succinctly: they are variously non-credible, incoherent, irrelevant, and grossly insufficient to whatever topic he is at the moment under the impression he is dealing-with. Additionally, I find that this is basically all we are ever going to get from him; it is his ‘shtick’ and his personal gameplan seems to be that he need only keep repeating it in order to make his ‘contribution’. I imagine this to be something like an ape at the zoo tossing … whatever is handy … at the plexiglass partition of his cage, perhaps in the hope that one of these days one of those warm steamy piles will punch through. That’s as may be.
Since ‘JR’ has taken the liberty of sharing that he will no longer traffic with “immoral” types, I will take the liberty of saying that I won’t be trafficking with sleazy whackjob types.
But I am happy to see the material he produces thrown up on the screen here. Readers can look at the patterns the material makes on the screen and draw their own conclusions. And thanks to TMR for editing out the expletives.
But as I have said before, we see in ‘JR’ what is – I believe – precisely the type of mentality that Abuse-nik organizers and advocates have always sought to enlist in their cause. Which is another reason why the Catholic Abuse Matter has gone on and on and on, although – finally now – its more competent enablers and fellow-travelers are finally beginning to see the actual state of affairs and adjust their positions accordingly. TMR has played and continues to play a substantial role in this development.
And what zoo would be complete without an ape-cage or two? As long as the plexiglass partitions are kept in place.
Dear Publion,
The hope was to offer both. In other words, if you were willing–to write however long,
detailed and lengthy as you are inspired or called to write. Then, if you were willing,
to sum it up in a paragraph or two with a "click here" button for the in depth analysis.
I read this site once that said many reporters knowledge bases are "an inch deep and a
mile wide." I was hoping if you provided both levels, more readers could absorb your
message. I hope I did not hurt your feelings. Please forgive me if I did.
Publion,
You are awesome. If you were willing to provide a mini and expanded version, it may be helpful. Bottom line: We are lucky and grateful you found us!
Publion, I think your posts are way over Jim Robertson's head, and that is why he skips over them and then flings mud. I am glad, Publion, that you and others make the effort to put some understanding into this issue. We and the issues are not all one-dimensional like JR thinks. I was guessing you are a professor, I do believe your lectures would be over my head if you were. Unlike the guy who comes on here, lies and says he's a media professor and then goes into a poorly worded, uninformed rant. LOL.
Julie, I think none of you are one-dimensional. Never have. Never will.
(Isn't there a poo poo phase in early childhood according to Freud?)
When one can't tell the difference between dung and truth; there would seem to be a problem with the viewer not the truth teller.
I've noticed how anyone who brings up the subject of poo in conversation is always a bit odd.
Yes some of the people here are too immoral to talk to. People who call other people names like s*%t throwing monkey, for example. But it amuses me to post here. Especially with all the goings on in the "whited seplecure": the Vatican. And because victims are still isolated , uncared for and uncompensate thanks to your support of a decadent, hypocritical and truely vicious corporate Church.
What's the old line?: If the fish stinks, it's from the head.
.
The reason this "abuse matter" has gone "on and on" Is because more documentation regarding coverups and felonies committed have been uncoverd from Law to Mahoney; and the revelations have only started.
As far as "sleazy whackjob types" goes (I'm afraid to turn the other cheek here because pub might think I'm preparing to do something else..refering to apes and plexiglass cages).So once again I will say the only names I've called Mr. P. are "reactionary" and ".bore" and "verbose". I'll stand by those.
And as far as the guy who went to Oxford, Mark?
If P's outline of history is better than the education at Oxford, then the world of " professional higher education" may be a myth .
[Comment edited by moderator]
Let's not let the Pope's retirement give you or your vile fiends any false hope in your tiresome and loathsome attacks on the Church, and on the Catholic religion (which you attack every chance you get). As usual, your media bedmates are creating the usual antiCatholic feeding frenzy among themselves, and just as is the case in nature (which you know scant little about), those sharks will devour themselves soon enough.
[Comment edited by moderator]
My God, woman now your insulting people you don't even know, my "vile friends". Have you any idea what Christianity is supposed to be about?
FYI I think ALL religions are bogus but I attack none of them. What I do QUESTION is the lack of logic in FAITH based philosophies when they are presented by you and other people here as FACT.
There is no orchestrated attack on Catholicism by anyone other than your hierarchs and supporters like you. The rest of the world is simply discussing the revelation that your corporate Church has fallen so dispicably far from the standard that your God demands. And that they did it CONCIOUSLY. Law Ratzinger, Mahoney, The Irish cardinal on ad infinitum did these act knowingly. That's what you are choosing to ignore. Especially when the hierarchy have, so obviously, failed (not only morally but CRIMINALLY) to protect the innocent children of your faith. So that they might appear flawless.
Hey an aside from all this. If you were a monkey trapped; imprisoned; and put on display . Day in day out year after year. Wouldn't you be throwing and showing how you really feel?
Let's hear it for the monkees. They are our cousins after all.
http://www.catholicleague.org/accused-priests-and-rabbis/
I will just never get used to the "out of the closet" practice of bias against the Church, forsaken all others. The reason for the attacks against the Church is so apparent that even an aged, drug-addled, virus- infected homosexual deviant liar could see it clear as day.
Happy story- the #1 liked Facebook site is called Jesus. HE is always here wth us.
I don't have a bias against your Church, if I did what effect could one man's bias have? I just don't believe in the tennents of what you believe.
And now your Christ like disposition posts " aged, (as if that's some "crime", how old's your next Pope going to be 21?) and then "drug-addled" (If you use the word "addled" your no Spring chicken yourself) and then "virus-infected" and "homosexual deviant liar" too boot.
[Comment edited by moderator]
Let me say David please, I used nor thought any curse words in my edited comment to D.
What I said was, according to everything I was taught as moral in Catholic schools, refering to the HIV virus, in the way you have, is again not what Jesus would do.
Responding to Clare: please rest assured that you haven't hurt my feelings. You raised a point that has been on my mind as well. If I went with the 'link' idea, I think it would defeat my purpose of confronting readers with the reality of what I think it takes to do a serious bit of thinking and analysis. But you have also offered another interesting possiblity: at the end of the longer comment, put in a 'summary' paragraph: short and succinctly stating my conclusion, but with the substance of the thought that led to that conclusion right there on top of it. That is something I am going to work on. And thanks for the idea.
One other thought too: there are clearly a lot of competent readers and commenters on this site, and you are welcome to take my material and rework it in ways that may well make it more accessible to more folks in more venues. Please feel free to do so!
I'd rather discuss the hoardes of NAMBLA, B4-U-Act, pagan (think UnHolywood here), Jewish (Orthodox, Hasidic), Hindu, atheist and Islamic abuses of children and women as a matter of acceptable and even admired behavior within their cultures than discuss the few fallen and repentent Christians. At least Catholics have a standard- what is the others, or yours? It is the Christian standard from which western culture derives any of it's high morals (they certainly didn't come from the others) - even those you espouse (regret to inform you that as a former Catholic some of that Catho-goo morality probably rubbed off on you, after all). It certainly wasn't your hairsuited "cousins" that passed along those morals that separate you from them (…or not?).
Of course, it is easy to attack the one religion that won't (be permitted to) attack you back (as even the TMR moderator will attest), Christianity. You will show yourself to be an honest broker on behalf of all truly abused and exploited children (not to be mistaken with the post-pubescent/young adult and adult homosexual liaison's that dominate the Catholic Church matter) when you become an equal opportunity critic, and crusader. But, the fact is that you hate Catholicism because it is the only religion that condemns your lifestyle, but, still permits you to exist (as in live), while expressing love and forgiveness for you all the while. Not so easily dismissed, are we? Catholicism is the one religon that did, and continues to revolutionize the world by releasing it from the grips of pure evil and moving it ever closer to God. Only one posessed by true evil would hate such goodness, love and charity. An argument could be made (with actual evidence) that it is only Christianity, in the form of Catholicism, that stands between the vast and ubiquitous network of child molesters/exploiters and their innocent victims and that is why there is such hatred for and assaults being launched on our Church. No other entity in the world does more to protect children from exploitation across the world.
Until you broaden your religious and irreligious tent to include the true and chronic offenders of children, you are simply dishonest (and any other synonym that the moderator will permit as beholding to charitable Catholic principles).
Those monkees [sic] you reference are more related to some commenters here than others
Do you ever stop calling your fellow man names?
Your Church should be protecting children from exploitation. All adults should be protecting children. You want a medal for behaving decently?
I don't hate Catholicism. I hardly ever think about it.
Let your leaders do their repenting for their felonies, in and when they get out of jail.
What I do hate is hypocricy.
Exactly how many Mel Gibson-esque "Road Warriors" have you enlisted in your "Love" "Crusade" yet?
Scared of evolution? We share 91% of our DNA with chimpanzies. All humans do; including you. You have a problem with that, take it up with your Deity.
What the heck is" Catho-goo morality" as compared to just plain old morality? You know plain old morality like the Golden Rule? (Catho-goo! Yikes!)
Still waiting to hear about all those other offenders of children (real children, not homosexuals acting out)? Let's not talk about me or what I do, or not, let's talk about the fact that you and your media-ites ignore offences against children being abused everywhere but in the Catholic Church. That is the definition of hypocrisy- not what you try to pass off.
Still waiting to hear about the Magdalene Laundries hype that wasn't – just as is the case with abuse of children by priests. Why do you want innocent men, many of them homosexuals, in prison, but you don't want those NAMBLA or B4-U-Act and Hollywood pedophiles (in the actual sense) punished? Why do you only focus on the Church?
You cant, and you won't answer. You'll come back with the usueal tripe of attacking me, accusing me of attacking you, you'll attack others on this site, you"ll continue to attack Church dogma and doctrine and you'll continue the same sick speaking points that your lefty fiends belch out on a regular basis on the media outlets.
Thank God for Fox News, at least they aren't drinking the lefty cool-aid. It is funny to watch the main stream (lefty) media try to resolve the fact that they have NO SAY or influence in the election of the pope. I've haven't seen such lefty frustration since GWB left office. It's worth it to watch them stumble all over themselves during the Vatican media blackout. This will be a good lesson in restraint for them. That is also good advice for deviant homosexuals.
Delphin,
You tell him! I, too, thank God for Fox News. I have a very liberal cousin who
exclaimed: "The ONLY time I will ever put on Fox News is when I need to find out
what is going on– if it is really important." Huh?
In the matter of ongoing “documentation” and so on – which is supposed to be proving all sorts of stuff – perhaps a few such instances could be named. By my count, there is: the Dutch Abuse Report – which has not been heard from again and the text of which has never been made public; the lawsuit brought in the International Criminal Court in the Hague which has never seen the light of day and apparently has been rejected by that Court; the LA documents, which apparently have fizzled and for good reason; the Magdalene Laundries claims which have now been demonstrated as inaccurate and untruthful; and the Philadelphia trials, which are being thoroughly dissected and demonstrated to be as questionable as the Grand Jury presentation which preceded them.
I don’t count unsubstantiated assertions by self-declared victims as “documentation” until they are supported by demonstrable evidence.
So what “documentation” are we missing here?
Could you please stop being so extrodinarily mean and silly? Could you?
I personally "focus" on the corporate Church because I was harmed BY the corporate Church.
I wasn't harmed anywhere else.
Why is it my job to focus anywhere else but the place I was harmed?
They have the police to do that work. If the police are informed. Something your corporate leaders feloniously conspired to avoid. Hence the scandal.
It's not my job to save all children everywhere. I only wish I was that powerful. I want all children protected every where.
Maybe if your hierarchs were more sane about birth control there wouldn't be so many unwanted children abandoned by their parents. Left to be exploited and even literally hunted in the streets of South America for one example.
Maybe if there were more concerned leaders like Chavez and Castro the poor wouldn't be so poor. Look what Chavez did by nationalizing the oil of Venezuela for the Venezuelan people, That they might enjoy the benefits of their national wealth. After all it's their oil not our oligarchs.
I was't hurt at public school. I didn't work as a woman/girl in the Magdelene Laundries. I know nothing about that. So how could I comment?
What" lefty" koolaid? The "right" has pushed this lefty media junk for all my "old" life now.
Did that "left" media stop Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan? No they ran to support "chicken hawk" George. and the monsters that came before. Visit a V.A. and see the residue of those efforts.
And who paid the price for the media's failure to tell the truth about those wars? Why children that's who paid, their's and ours, and for what? For what?
So it aint very left. And that's from an up front lefty.
The only place the left has won real victories is in seeing gay people as people and women as equals all starting with people of color. That social revolution definitely came from the left and my generation and I'm extremely proud of being a part of that.
(You often talk about the elitist left. You guys were the elitists. If you were white and male and heterosexual and of a certain class and supported strongly the classes above you., [Which is what you call ",patriotism" another huge lie] opportunity was there. For the rest of us not. I quote John Fogarty. "It ain't me. It ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, (sic) I ain't the fortunate one, No!")
Is that kool aid to you? Social justice?
I truely don't know why I bother, YOU don't have a say in electing your Pope.
The media is falling all over itself, almost in "heat" giving this election coverage. They always do. That's just the opposite of what you claim.
Maybe restraint should begin at home with you and yours. But it won't.
I wait for the day when you'll be arming the Christian soldiers of Africa or what ever other impoverished and uneducated group the right can delude to attack and of course kill all the deviant homosexuals and or leftists and or feminists you can find. I'll be here.
School abuse reporting: Training murky despite horrifying cases, survey finds
MercuryNews.com
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_22749685/school-abuse-reporting-training-
School lawsuit hearing for sex abuse case
"Sides unable to reach settlement in Lamoille sex abuse case"
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130306/NEWS07/303060016/School-laswuit
Oh!!! Now I understand what Laura Ingrahm meant by saying we had a "choice" to
go to participate with church or not. It does not appear the citizens are getting much
"choice" picking up these tabs throughout the country Any math whizzes?
Where are we at this point???.
Guess what, if NAMBLA "people" don't commit crimes, they don't go to jail .
It's called free speech. I neither like nor understand those people.
I don't like Nazi's either but they are also entitled to think or say what they want. As long as no crimes are committed.
Clare, your cousin meant, If something big's up and Fox news is all she/he can get. she/he will watch. is that so hard to understand? Or maybe it's just to see what the right wing's up to.
The reason Mahoney's felonies have "fizzled" is due to statutes of limititation. And the fact that the Feds won't go after Mahoney and Curry on the Rico act. In a huge part due to the lack of focus by the media and SNAP on the only option, Rico, available to us for justice.
So every time you sing this "lefty" media tune the media falls all over itself listening to your nonsense. And another perp gets off scot free. You must be proud. You have your own version of NAMBLA.
We are now informed – by way of implicit agreement – that yes, the LA document performance has indeed fizzled.
But then the assertion is quickly made that this merely because of the expiration of the Statutes of Limitations (SOLs). But that assertion doesn’t work.
The SOLs merely govern the bringing of civil or criminal Complaints and Charges. But the documents fail far more profoundly, in their very inability to demonstrate what Abuse-niks have claimed that they would demonstrate.
If the documents themselves were as convincing as they were supposed to have been, then we would be seeing far more of a public groundswell for some sort of government action. But we do not.
And the analysis of the documents doesn’t provide any ‘smoking gun’ either, as we have seen.
Even SNAP – as I mentioned in a prior comment on this site – has stated that it is “very disappointed” in the documents. Whether that implies that the documents themselves were disappointing or the public (and media) response to them was disappointing is open to discussion. But either way you go here, it doesn’t work out well for the Abuse-nik agenda.
It is also highly dubious that the Federal RICO laws are applicable here, let alone whether there is any evidence to make enough of a case to justify bringing Charges. This dampdream of RICO prosecutions takes its place – I would say – with the dampdream of bringing that war-crimes and crimes-against-humanity Complaint at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. After all, a case could at least tenuously be made that any such ‘cover-up’ was on-going, and in that framing of the matter the SOLs wouldn’t apply.
The SOL argument also – neatly and slyly – requires that one presumes the validity of the asserted ‘crime’, and then one can merely grumble ad infinitum to one’s heart’s content about the confounding technicality of the SOLs, without ever having had to demonstrate the fact of a crime having been committed at all. Thus the Ball can be Kept Rolling, at least in a certain type of mind.
One can then also add the feds and SNAP to one’s list of those entities that have let the Abuse-niks down. In fact, in the most recent couple of Philadelphia trial posts on Mr. Cipriano’s BigTrial site, we see precisely this gambit developing: one of the most single-mindedly Abuse-nik commenters, who had been very pleased with Mr. Cipriano’s reporting when it seemed to buttress the Abuse-nik agenda, is now claiming that Mr. Cipriano’s extended and thorough examination of the facts and problems with the investigation and trial material is actually a ‘defense’ of those Charged and (weirdly) no longer hews to “the facts”. “Facts” with the Abuse-niks is actually a code-word for ‘whatever makes out case’ and ‘disregarding facts’ means any effort to actually examine the material (which so very often undercuts the Abuse-nik position).
In the Abuse-nik universe, claims and assertions are put forward not to be examined and deliberated-upon, but instead simply to be accepted at face-value. Anything less than such acceptance – and the concomitant emotional Stampede to support the Abuse-nik agenda – is baaaaad. The demand is for immediate delivery of an ice-cream cone; any attempt to rationally examine the demand is treachery and oppression – who hasn’t encountered this dynamic somewhere along the line?
Lastly, although it is probably never going to happen, it would be a verrry interesting exercise to subject the claims and stories put forward in the many civil lawsuits against the Church of the past decade to the same type of examination that the second Philadelphia trial and investigation material are now receiving.
Did I stumble into a John Birch society meeting?
I've seen stones with higher I.Q's than Sarah Palin.
Ah thank you P, the penny drops. So that's the story : Be diverted by Cipriano's strongly pushed diversion, the Philly show. (Ralph could be absolutely honest but something is very very odd here.) Look we're talking about a possibly, in your minds," fake case" instead of the rest of the real cases. How extraordinarily convient for you, again.
. Why it's every thing you've ever wanted. You must be delerious with hope and rage.
Of course that same "miracle" has happened a couple of times before: Remember Cardinal Bernadin's "false accuser" who was still paid off?
Even though, oddly enough the all American jury ruled for the victim here,( You know, the JURY?, )
Talk about damp dreams!
How wonderful for you. Your prayers have been answered. And right on time. or is it?
Your closing the barn door long after the corporate coverup horse has bolted.
Even though P will say it hasn't.
As far as the American people go your stables are empty.
So you prove my point that SNAP is the Church when you say: "Even SNAP says it's 'very disappointed' in the documents". The whole frigging world says the documents revel felonies and cover ups. But SNAP says it's "very disappointed". Screw SNAP!
Who cares what SNAP says? one. And two, We Victims are "very disappointed" in SNAP and it's bullshit raps. But once again, Why oh why would you bother to listen to victims when you'd rather play the victim?
You pretend to have the moral high ground. That's just a "pose" you take. Like someone whose family makes profit off of the very "immorality" you so deeply don't give a rat's ass about. Unless you can some how use it to make your own lack of Christian love seem, to you and the people you wish to control, superior. A more "holy" way to be. Bunk! And that neurotic snobbery is what you pass off as: Christian love?
Drop the posturing. You all have proven post after post that you wouldn't know Jesus if he walked up and drop kicked you.
TMR Readers:
Forgive me, to digress away from priests to examine Sarah Palin. I realize she had many critics. However, there are striking similarities in the way she was treated. Publion's writings in earlier months made a reference to the "cartoon". The point was how easily relatively well educated, well intentioned people can be so easily seduced to bias and cruelty.
Sarah Palin represents everything the left hates. She is "truly" a strong woman. Imagine the courage it would take to campaign while Elizabeth Stamatina Fey (aka Tina Fey) makes a significant investment in reducing another woman''s reputation. A Mother (Sarah Palin) with a son in uniform defending this cruel person's "right" to insult his own Mother, the candidate, because she attended to a state college instead of Harvard. A woman who took six years because she did not want to burden her family or the tax payers with the costs of her education, therefore, she worked during school and summers.
On wikpedia (TIna Fey) the top paragraph on page 6 of 22 pages chillingly describes the process:
In December of 2009, Entertainment Weekly put her (Tina Fey) impersonation on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, writing. "Fey's freakishly spot-on SNL impersonation of the wannabe VP (and her ability to strike a balance between comedy and cruelty) made for truly transcendent television.
One station (Greta) on Fox News had the intelligence, decency and sensitivity to put a stop
to the cruelty by giving Sarah the opportunity to define herself.
As far as "Tina Fey" is concerned: If we are ever not One Nation Under God, and, our
freedoms deteriorate, Tina Fey can proudly share with her own children the role she played.
In response to the 3/11 9:53 post; Nothing left to say, debate or challenge when the communist (antiAmerican), radicalized homosexual and antiCatholic's own words do more to convict his dishonest intentions on the Church abuse matter than any one else could ever have done so effectively. And, oh boy, is a good old fashioned American (not revisionist leftist) history book required. For those of us who lived those wars cited and those civil rights gained, the notion that a privelaged white, formerly heterosexual male, with apparently gigantic gonads, thinks rewriting contemporary history in full view of, well, history's contemporaries will fly speaks volumes of a certain sense of reality. Alinsky, the lefts hero, lives, for now. But, his days (as is his sick ideology) are waning, thank God. Just because you keep repeating those insane (and thoroughly disproved) lefty talking points doesn't make it true.
We know we're on the right track when the left's dishonest track is so unusually revealed.
P.S. Communists were considered "anti" American only when there was a Soviet Union to hate.
And again when the same U.S. military industrial complex, (that Republican President Ike warned us against), wanted to squeeze even more profit from American workers, through fear, per usual.
Just think.I( know I'm reaching to ask that.) what kind of America we would have had we not ransomed our great great grand children for war mongers.
Thank you Senator Mc Carthy's Ghost.
The same old junk:
Pick an enemy. Dehumanize (Demonize?) and vilify them.
Say God is being attacked (or those who represent God or all that's good on earth)
Then kill them or have someone else, the poor for example, do it for you.
But what ever you do, don't talk to them like they're a permanent neighbor your going to have to live with.
P.P.S. I'm much more Aunty Mame than anti-Catholic.
More for Clare- Just a fraction of what we need to celebrate about the Catholic Church (your cousin is a closet-conservative- poor, scared thing!)
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/03/11/can-pope-save-your-life-bet/?intcmp=HPBucket
Imagine for a moment that you are a modestly-competent long-distance trucker taking a large rig full of perishables to, say, New York after Hurricane Sandy. The truck breaks down and you can’t even get it to a mechanic’s facility; it sits on the side of a public street.
Along comes the service truck you called for, and out steps a master mechanic. The two of you stand on the sidewalk and try to figure the problem out after he has opened the engine-compartment.
Suddenly, a homeless person comes along (it’s a public sidewalk), gesticulating in the air and holding a rant with himself. He stops and declares that he too was once both truck-driver and master mechanic but it was all taken away from him by ‘conspiracy’; he then proceeds to interject his mental content into the conversation – but all of his offerings are of the ‘that’s stupid’, ‘that won’t work’, ‘you don’t know what I know’ variety, along with occasional declamations to the effect that trucks are bad for the environment anyway.
What can you do? It’s a public street and he’s breaking no law (civic law; the laws of reason and rationality are not prosecutable by police).
This is the situation – as I see it – on the internet. It’s a public sidewalk and there’s not much anybody can do to police it.
Meanwhile the serious issues still have to be discussed and worked out as best as can be managed.
Yes P that's exactly how we see you. Can I give you a lift to the local shelter? and thanks for your help.
Unfortunate for the lefties, and fortunate and blessed for us, the new Pope, God Bless Pope Francis, is just as orthodox/conservative about our Catholic theology as were/are his predecessors. There wll be lots of drowning of sorrows (and other sundry and debauched festivities) on the Upper West Side and down in the Village in Manhattan tonight.
And, as a little bonus – sounds like he's just the (God's) man for the job of correcting cumulative Curia ills. Those thousands years old bureacracies do get a bit damp and dusty over the years.
Here's to the next couple thousand years.
Anything going on in Chelsea? SoHo? Brooklyn?
It strikes me that a reader’s review of comments here gives some very clear examples of the level of discourse at which, for far too long, the Sex-Abuse Matter has been mostly conducted, somewhere between the whacky rant and the high-school cafeteria.
The quality of thinking (or lack of it), the level of accuracy (or lack of it), the respect for actual fact (or lack of it) – all of which we have been amply, even floridly, provided with so often here, and delivered as if on cue – stand as stark evidence of how this whole Thing has kept itself alive on the Web.
The larger and deeper forces that have all along pushed this forward have been so conveniently masked by the jabber and fizzle of what historians – when they come to examine the whole Thing soberly, and that may be a time not so very far off – will probably realize was, all along, a gaggle of “useful idiots” (to borrow Lenin’s acute concept): persons who tell themselves they have brilliantly and rightly embraced a Cause for what they imagine are their own purposes, while actually simply serving the purposes of far larger and deeper forces that use the useful-idiots as a perfect screen behind which to hide themselves and their activities and objectives.
As we have seen and continue to see now, the media’s role is vital. If – for whatever purposes – it chooses to continue the Thing, then in dignifying that low level of discourse, they simultaneously degrade the capacity of any rational and serious discourse. And without that rational and serious level of discourse, the most whacky material can be embraced and amplified.
If readers have been keeping up with Mr. Cipriano’s work on the BigTrial site, they have a chance to see – perhaps for the first time since this Thing began – the collision of serious and sustained analysis of clear evidentiary-grade material, on the one hand, and on the other hand the degraded but robust efforts of those who have, wittingly or – more likely – unwittingly, been carrying the water for their ultimate puppeteers, while all the time bucking themselves and each other up with the sure and certain belief that they are major players on the stage.
This is a historical moment. Not only for the Abuse Matter but for American journalism. And also for the country itself. Because it remains even more vividly now a vital Question: how did a presumably advanced and educated society become so enmeshed into such a sustained Stampede on the basis of what – it is becoming increasingly clear – has been very little evidence and a whole lot of vivid but ungrounded assertion?