Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" has one line that's chillingly relevant these days-"going to the candidate's debate...laugh about it, shout about it, when you got to choose. Any way you look at it you lose." That's a perfect description of todays' presidential races-on the one hand you've got somebody who was elected because he wasn't George Bush and on the other side a group of religious nutcases who would make Christianity the state religion.
Timothy Dolan. He's almost a enigma. He seems like the kind of guy I'd hang out with, have a beer with, but then he gets on the phone to Obama and threatens him about the health plan by saying-I've got all these followers ready to vote against you. That creates two problems for the Bishop.
First is that the Church's higher-ups (and lower downs) are all male. They've got no right to tell a woman what to do with her body. When one of the priests or bishops get pregnant then they can open their mouths. But the Church believes that "suffer the little children" means the sexual maltreatment of little boys. They're more concerned about covering up their priests' escapades then giving women any rights.
The Church wants no government interference with their religion. That's cool. It's in the Constitution. But so is the converse. Whenever Dolan tries to force the government to do something by mentioning the amount of voters they've got they should be reminded they're a no-taxable institution, but that could change. Can you imagine the money taxing the Church could bring in?
A letter in todays' Post brought up a point I never thought of, and I don't believe too many have. One of the reasons the Church is so against contraception is that more babies=more Catholics=more voters=more money. Or is somebody being paranoid? Nah.
Reverend. That's a term of respect for a religious figure. That's one thing I'll rarely (if ever) have for Al Sharpton. He first came to public attention during the infamous Tawana Brawley case, which now seems the first of his public scams. I was more than a little surprised when I found a Columbia senior didn't know who Tawana Brawley was. Not that Sharpton or Maddox really wants it nosed around. It's a sore point, like Sean Combs' Bronx rap concert where I believe at least nine died. (You might know him better as Puffy or P. Diddy. Whatever.)
Let's talk of crime. We're in New York. There's a lot of it around. Boston's got a lot also. Dennis Lehane's made a career out of it. In his mystery "A Drink Before The War" he brings up an interesting point. How come white on black murders are hate crimes, but not the obverse? We make a big thing of Amadou Diello or Sean Bell, but not the Columbia student who was hit by a car after being chased into 125th Street by a gang of black kids shouting "get whitey."
Before we damn Sharpton let's start with the community he "represents" (what he represents is Al Sharpton, but I think you knew that). Blacks comment on police profiling and random searches, and then complain that nobody's doing enough to stop the spate of young blacks being killed by other young blacks. A young kid tries to stop two friends from throwing a cart onto somebody's head, and his family gets death threats and he's branded a "snitch" in school. How fast will this viewpoint change when one of theirs is gunned down? How fast can you blink?
Now back to Fat Al. You see him at protests when a black youth is killed by a cop or a group of whits but never the obverse. To me this' the sign of a self-promoting hate monger.If Sharpton truly deserves Reverend in front of his name he'll be at the next funeral of an officer killed by a black, the funeral of a white killed by a black or marching against black on black crime. Till then, I say to the black community, when you need police help don't call the cops, call "Fat" Al Sharpton.
Now back to Sanitarium, or however you pronounce this clown's name. These religious right Republicans are truly dangerous, as they command legions of otherwise sane Americans. As I've said before, whenever you wave the Good Book (and we've all got one) otherwise normal people froth at the mouth and soil their carpets. The Republicans have turned this election into one more focused on religion than whatever's ailing this nation, and I'm one of the long religion. But I'll remind Sanitation (I love his name!) that Christianity is just a sect, we took care (w/ Roman help) of a reform rebel rabbi a few thousand years ago, and a religious Republican nut case won't be any harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment