Yes, vigilantes

What is with the national media pontiffs who keep trying to canonize the "Minutemen" who have invaded Arizona's southern border? Minutemen, my foot. They are vigilantes. It is true that many are senior citizens parked on lawn chairs with their
binoculars and cell phones and glorying in the national and international attention they are getting. But as reported this week by Ray Ybarra who heads up the ACLU volunteers who monitor this explosive situation, others run around dressed in military fatigues and armed with pistols, talking on their radios as if they'd been transported back to the Vietnam war. The month-long, highly dangerous circus is about to end this weekend. But it is very easy to believe the vigilantes when they say they'll be right back. And they plan to spread the plague to other states. Arrrrghhhh!

Frist's unholy alliance

Thom Hartmann, writing yesterday in CommonDreams.org about the very pious Senator Bill Frist, put it all in this exquisite nutshell:

"The real power of the Republican Party is held by the corporatists - who Vice President Henry Wallace called "the American fascists" - whose loyalty is to hereditary wealth and corporate rule. (As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: 'A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.')

"But this is such a small minority of Americans that Frist's wealthy fascists had to bring along somebody else. They chose the religious fundamentalists for their unholy alliance."

The Rev. Frist

It looks like the Senate Majority boss is going to go through with his "TV revival" appearance on Sunday. Apparently Karl Rove figured out how to manipulate the fundamentalist masses even before politics became computerized, and that was a very long time ago. By now his star seminary students, like Brother George W., Brother Tom D. and Doc Frist should have fundamentalist ordination certificates nailed to their office walls. Next step will be to burn all those pagan judges at the stake.

Will somebody please send a good exorcist to Washington?

rev. ricardo

The new pope

So I predicted a Latin American would be elected. I almost as easily might have predicted several others from Africa and Europe. But Joseph Ratzinger? I just did not think it could happen, even if people from Vatican insiders to prominent bookies said his chances were way up there.

And now Joseph is Benedict, and we have a pope considerably more conservative than John Paul II. (Yes, considerably.)

Probably every one of 1.1 blllion Catholics worldwide who is over age six and has access to a television screen already has felt some strong emotion. Perhaps the great majority feels the "gaudium magnum" - the great joy - announced by Cardinal Medina Estevez after the white smoke and pealing of the bells of St. Peter's. I am among those who feel a profound sadness.

But maybe there will be a miracle. The last Benedict, known as the Fifteenth, was a moderate for his time (early 20th century) and essentially a reconciler.

ricardo

New turn

Till now I have (obviously) used this blog to publish quotes related to justice and peace, a sort of mini-version of my j&p list where I send out full articles every night.

Beginning now, the blog will include some of my own thoughts. I've set it for no comments simply because with three lists I don't have the extra time to respond. (However I think that just about everybody who ever looks here already has my email address.)

Anyway, here goes:

Admitting that I would never bet so much as ten dollars on a papal election (at least this one as well as the last two), I still will make a prediction: Those 115 electors are going to choose a Latin American.

ricardo

P.S. I feel old. Within days I will have lived during the pontificate of seven popes.

A reminder in the last hours of tax day

Molly Ivins (on Alternet) had a lot to say today about our skewed tax system.

Such as the following:

"Fifty years ago, corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. But by 2003, that was down to 16 percent. So individual taxpayers have to make up the difference, as corporate profits soar and wages fall."

Helping children thrive

"A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.

"This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations."

--from an article by Terry Jones, today, in The Guardian (UK)

Hans Kung on John Paul II

Much of the world is paying homage to John Paul II's courage in Poland, his outreach to Jews, his global communication
skills and much more. Here is another part of the story, reported today by msnbc.com -- I'll post a much longer statement from Kung himself on my j&p list soon.

ricardo

A BLAST FROM OUTSPOKEN THEOLOGIAN

Amid the outpouring of praise for the late pope, a leading theologian who defied John Paul II says the pontiff has bequeathed a “dead hand” on the Roman Catholic church that will continue to exert a damaging influence beyond his death.

“The Polish pope’s internal policies were devastating,” Hans Kueng said in a statement, citing “many average, even incompetent bishops, some countries where over half of all parishes are without priests, and less and less qualified new blood.”

He added, “This pope continued to forbid priests from marrying, he forbade women to use the Pill, men to use condoms, women to take Church ministries, lay theologists to preach and Christians (of other denominations) to share the Eucharist.”

Seemingly Endless Lunacy

"Ponder this: Next year, the administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets over 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a Hummer, which gets 10-12 mpg. That's truly crazy, and that's truly what the whole Cheney energy policy is."

--Molly Ivins, AlterNet, March 29, 2005