Bueligion: Happy Easter, You Murdering SOB

The Peace Prize Winner took the Crazy Religion thing to its farthest extent. He wants us to consider the Christ during Easter and throws a little war and mayhem in there with the advice. I don’t know about you (whether or not you are a believer), but if this is what Christianity is supposed to be, I ain’t one.

There is absolutely no way in hell that anyone can honestly and accurately equivocate Christ with war and murder. Yet, we have a country full of “loving Christians” who find NO problem with the dichotomy. Americans have become so stupidly brainwashed that you read the red letters, but still agree with the murdering assholes who defy Christ’s teachings. How can you do that? Is it the Olde English of the KJV? If so, get a version your stupid ass can understand, for you are making a mockery out of the teachings of the Man you claim to follow (yet wouldn’t know Him if He slapped you with a crucifix).

Damned Hypocrites!

Blessing the Bombs

by George Zabelka

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings.

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing.

As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)

I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.”

I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.

War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.

The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.

Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.

Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt.

There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.

I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness.

I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.

All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.

The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.

Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.

As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing.

Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.

We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.

August 17, 2005

h/t Dandelion Salad

Who’s Up Next For The Empire’s Affections?

I have been a long time reader of Steve Lendman’s blog. He does some really thorough work that details aspects of government shenanigans and is a daily read for me (highly recommended). In today’s article, Steve delves into the hypocrisy that is America’s foreign policy. He points out the lies and distractions, the American instigated coup attempts, the name calling and innuendo used to marginalize Chavez.

I talk to people every day that can do nothing except regurgitate the propaganda against Chavez and his socialistic agenda. All the while, they have no clue that in comparison to America, Venezuela is an angel, whereas America is Satan, himself. Allow Steve to lay it out as well as anything I have read:

Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs

Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs – by Stephen Lendman

Washington fears Hugo Chavez for good reason. His “good example” threat raises concerns that other regional leaders may follow. As a result, throughout his tenure, he’s been targeted and vilified – to discredit, weaken and undermine his government to destroy Bolivarian benefits millions of Venezuelans now enjoy, won’t easily give up, nor should they.

Several failed coup attempts included:

– April 2002 for two days, an effort aborted by mass street protests and support from many in Venezuela’s military, especially from the middle-ranking officer corp;

– the 2002 – 2003 general strike and oil management lockout, causing severe economic disruption and billions of dollars in losses; and

– the August 2004 national recall referendum that Chavez won overwhelmingly with a 59% majority.

Thereafter, disruptions regularly followed to help domestic and US oligarchs regain what they lost, so far without success, but they persist, with supportive editorial, op-ed, and on-the-ground reporting. Also from an Organization of American States (OAS) report, the Vision of Humanity’s annual Global Peace Index (GPI), US State Department, and Pentagon.

On March 19, Reuters reported that, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, General Douglas Fraser, USSOUTHCOM (US Southern Command) head, claimed Chavez backs Colombian leftists, saying:

His government “continue(s) to have a very anti-US stance and look(s) to try and restrict US activity wherever they have the opportunity to do that. (It’s) continuing to engage with the region….and continuing to pursue (its) socialism agenda. (It) remain(s) a destabilizing force in the region.”

He said Venezuela continues to support FARC-EP rebels, providing “financial logistical support” and a safe haven based on evidence found on a laptop seized in a 2008 Ecuadorean guerrilla camp raid – information later proved bogus.

Yet a week earlier, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Fraser testified otherwise, saying:

“We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify that there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection” between Chavez and either the FARC-EP or the Basque separatist group ETA. “We have continued to watch very closely for any connections between illicit and terrorist organization activity within the region. We are concerned about it. I’m skeptical. I continue to watch for it,” but as yet haven’t found it.

During her March 1 – 5 Latin American tour, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gratuitously insulted Chavez. So did Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, in Senate testimony, accusing him of FARC-EP ties – suggesting much more to come to boost opposition candidates in September parliamentary elections.

US State Department 2009 Human Rights Report: Venezuela

Released on March 11, it followed earlier ones, bogusly accusing Chavez of:

– harassing and intimidating political opponents;

– targeting the media; and

– numerous human rights violations, including:

– “unlawful killings;

– summary executions of criminal suspects;

– widespread criminal kidnappings for ransom;

– prison uprisings resulting from harsh prison conditions;

– arbitrary arrests and detentions;

– corruption and impunity in police forces;

– a corrupt, inefficient, and politicized judicial system characterized by trial delays and violations of due process;

– (targeting) political opponents and selective prosecution(s) for political purposes;

– infringement of citizens’ privacy rights by security forces;

– government closure of radio and television stations and threats to close others;

– government attacks on public demonstrations;

– systematic discrimination based on political grounds;

– considerable corruption at all levels of government;

– threats and attacks against domestic NGOs;

– violence against women;

– inadequate juvenile detention centers;

– trafficking in persons; and

– restrictions on workers’ right of association.”

Other charges have included drugs trafficking and ties to bogusly designated “foreign terror organizations” like the FARC-EP and ETA.

These sham charges and similar ones repeat regularly to discredit and undermine Chavez. Ironically, they’re more descriptive of American domestic and foreign policies – ones that defy US and international laws with regard to human and civil rights, equal justice, war, occupation, domestic tranquility, and the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 for the Congress to “provide (for) the general welfare of the United States,” the so-called welfare clause applying also to the Executive and judiciary.

In contrast, Chavez promotes world solidarity, democratic freedoms, human and civil rights, judicial fairness, fair and open elections, and a free and open media. He doesn’t invade other countries, has no secret prisons, doesn’t practice torture, or conduct fraudulent elections. As a result, he inspires millions worldwide, and has widespread domestic majority support. Yet bogus State Department charges persist.

Ones as well from a recent OAS report titled, “Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela,” produced under the mandate of the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Among others, its bogus accusations include:

– restricting human rights “enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights;”

– no independent separation among government branches;

– state punitive power to “intimidate or punish people on account of their political opinions;”

– denying journalists the right to report freely;

– “a pattern of impunity in cases of violence,” especially against “media workers, human rights defenders, trade unionists, participants in public demonstrations, people held in custody, campesinos (small-scale and subsistence farmers), indigenous peoples, and women;”

– restricted opportunities for opposing political candidates to secure “access to power;”

– disempowering opposition politicians through legal and other means;

– intimidating and punishing dissent against official policy through harassment, violence, and criminal proceedings;

– targeting peaceful opposition demonstrations;

– the absence of an independent, impartial judiciary; and

– numerous other charges like the US State Department’s, more descriptive of America, suggesting a hidden motive behind the report’s issuance; perhaps also its timing, two weeks before the State Department’s similar accusations.

Chavez called it “pure excrement….ineffable (and) ignominious” in denouncing the IACHR as “menacing….a true mafia and is part of the OAS, which is why one of these days this organization must disappear….It is the same Commission which backed (the de facto government of Pedro) Carmona” after the April 2002 coup. “But this is part of the attacks, of continued threats against the Bolivarian Revolution, (a) continued campaign (supported by Venezuelan and American oligarchs to) isolat(e) Venezuela.”

OAS history is long and shameful in deference to US interests.

Writing in Granma Internacional in June 2009, Editor Oscar Sanchez Serra said:

Throughout its history, the OAS “made democracies ungovernable, turned them into dictatorships, and when they were no longer useful, reconverted them into even more diminished and servile democracies, because in the new, neoliberal era, with transnationalized oligarch(ic) capital, they were part of a much more sophisticated power structure, whose bases were not necessarily located in the presidential palaces or parliaments, but in continental corporations.”

OAS nations had decades of “involvement with death, genocide and lies for (it) to survive these times. It is a political corpse and should be buried as soon as possible….The reality is, without the OAS, the United States would lose one of its principle political/legal instruments of hegemonic control over the Western Hemisphere.”

In February 2004, Washington got its backing to justify ousting Haiti’s President Jean-Betrand Aristide. Then in 2009, it abstained from strong actions after Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed, opting instead for symbolic toothless measures. It’s new report reveals transparent support for bogus US charges, not Venezuela’s participatory democracy, largely absent in the region and unimaginable in America where Washington is corporate controlled territory, and popular interests go unaddressed.

The Global Peace Index (GPI)

Launched by Australian entrepreneur, Steve Killelea, in May 2007, it claims to be the first study of its kind ranking nations according to peacefulness, identifying key peace drivers. Its initial report included 121 countries, increased to 140 in 2008 and 144 in its latest 2009 report, released in June last year.

Its problematic endorsers include:

– the Dalia Lama, a known CIA asset from the late 1950s to mid- 1970s, and may still be one now;

– John Malcolm Fraser, former Australian Prime Minister;

– Kofi Annan, infamous as UN Secretary-General for backing US imperial wars while ignoring the plight of oppressed Africans and others globally;

– Ban Ki-moon, current UN Secretary-General, performing the same services as Annan;

– corporate figures including Ted Turner (CNN founder) and Richard Branson (chairman, Virgin Group);

– an array of prominent current and past political and diplomatic figures;

– two members of Jordanian royalty;

– numerous academics; and others.

Organizations preparing GPI’s report and/or responsible for its data include:

– the Economist Intelligence Unit (founded by a former UK director of intelligence), calling itself “the world’s foremost provider of country, industry and management analysis” since 1946;

– the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at Sweden’s Uppsala University, producing annual “States in Armed Conflict” reports;

– the Oslo, Norway International Peace Research Institute, a private/publicly funded organization, producing “Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Annual Reports;” and

– the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), calling itself “the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict” with 450 corporate and institutional members.

The world was less peaceful in 2008, according to GPI, reflecting intensified conflicts and the effects of rising food and fuel prices at a time of global economic crisis, impacting employment, incomes, savings, and for many shelter, enough to eat, and the ability to survive.

GPI used 23 indicators to measure the level or absence of peace, divided into three broad categories, including:

– ongoing domestic and international conflict;

– safety and security in society; and

– militarization.

Scores were then “banded, either on a scale of 1 – 5 (for qualitative indicators) or 1 – 10 (for quantitative data, such as military expenditure or the jailed population, which have then been converted to a 1- 5 scale for comparability when compiling the final index).”

Indicators include:

– number of external and internal conflicts from 2002 – 07;

– estimated number of deaths from external conflicts;

– estimated number from internal ones;

– level of internal conflicts;

– relations with neighboring countries;

– perceptions of criminality in society;

– number of displaced people as a percentage of population;

– political instability;

– level of disrespect for human rights;

– potential for terrorist acts;

– number of homicides per 100,000 people;

– level of violent crime;

– likelihood of violent demonstrations;

– number of jailed population per 100,000 people;

– number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 population;

– military expenditures as a percent of GDP;

– number of military personnel per 100,000 population;

– volume of major weapon imports per 100,000 people;

– volume of major weapon exports per 100,000 people;

– funding for UN peacekeeping missions;

– total number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people;

– ease of access to small arms and light weapons; and

– the level of military capability.

Conspicuously absent is any measure of outside influence causing internal violence, instability, and/or disruption. Top rankings went to New Zealand, Denmark and Norway. Ranked worst were Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Israel.

Venezuela ranked an implausible 120th behind Yemen, Haiti, Iran, Honduras, Uzbekistan, Uganda, Rwanda, and dozens of other unlikely choices. America was 83rd, despite hands down being the world’s most violent lawless state, directly or through global proxy wars for unchallengeable world dominance.

It’s also a domestic armed camp, using police state laws to quash human rights and civil liberties, criminalize dissent, illegally spy, control information, persecute political opponents, steal elections, and transfer public wealth to elitist private hands.

In contrast, Venezuela is democratic and peaceful, except during periods of Washington-instigated disruptions. America alone endangers global stability and world peace, waging permanent wars, targeting peaceful nations, and claiming the unilateral right to use first strike nuclear weapons preemptively. It also maintains over 1,000 bases and many secret ones in over 130 countries. Its annual military budget tops all other nations combined – way over $1 trillion plus tens of additional billions for intelligence and black operations, mostly for covert destabilization.

It overthrows democratically elected governments, assassinates foreign leaders and key officials, props up friendly dictators, practices torture as official policy, operates the world’s largest domestic and offshore gulag, destabilizes world regions, and is hated and feared globally as a result.

In contrast, Chavez seeks regional and global alliances; engages foreign leaders cooperatively; assassinates no one internally or abroad; has no nuclear weapons or seeks them; spends less than one-half of one percent of the Pentagon’s official budget; doesn’t export weapons to neighbors; is socially responsible at home; has no secret prisons; respects the rule of law; is a model participatory democracy; governs peacefully; supports civil and human rights and social justice; affirms free expression; bans discrimination; and uses Venezuela’s resources responsibly – for people needs, yet is friendly to business at home and abroad.

Nonetheless, GPI ranks it below America in human and civil rights, level of organized internal conflict, relations with neighboring countries, potential for terrorist acts, level of violent crime, political instability, perceptions of criminality in society, ease of access to small weapons, freedom of the press, political democracy, adult literacy (way above the US Department of Education’s assessment), and willingness to fight.

Transparency International (TI) also rates Venezuela low in its 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), indicating the perceived level of public sector corruption by country, claiming a 90% confidence of accuracy. It ranks America implausibly high at 19th and Venezuela outrageously low at 162nd out of 180 countries, behind notoriously corrupt states, including corporate occupied Washington, siphoning trillions of public dollars to private hands as part of the greatest ever wealth transfer.

In ranking America v. Venezuela, TI, GPI, and OAS measures look suspiciously manipulated to place a global hegemon above a peaceful democratic state that coincidentally is Washington’s top regional target.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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