It is Yom Kippur (so if I were really Jewish I should not be on the web)- After sundown I will turn the lights out and the computer off in solidarity. This is the time I am told to really reflect hard on the moral failings, sins and transgressions we indulged in negligently or intentionally this past year and to humbly ask forgiveness. Catholics are supposed to do this daily or at least weekly and drop in the Confessional.
The National Conscience has two things on which it need chest-beat and start the wrenching of garments. The Nation as a whole has to figure out how to straighten up and fly right on these points which demand bipartisan non-bickering real solutions: it needs to face truth and consequences in a really intellectually honest way heretofore unseen-and we need to come together on it:
THE ENDLESS WARTHE FETACIDE HOLOCAUSTI pass no judgment on, while many have opinions on, which mass murdering is worse; the tacit legal permission for taking of innocent life that cannot defend itself or speak against it in numbers that surpass that of the WWII holocaust annually by women given legal license to self mutilate and discard their offspring in the process, or the civil engineering of a foreign country by Optional Experiamental War that has wiped out close to a million foreigners and several thousand of our own and cost us over 3 Billion dollars that should have been put to better use (for medical treatment of uninsured to save lives for example.)
On sheer numbers the Fetacide Holocaust suggests it is the more pressingly urgent moral crisis.
The culpability of the Nation's budget (your tax dollars) putting weaponry in the hands of Americans to perpetrate murder and mayhem on a country that didn't ask us in and doesn't really want us there, is a whole other level begging for moral scrutiny.
Back to the Fetacidal Holocaust:If you attribute the taking of the pre-born human genetically coded DNA with potential to become a fully human entity as seriously as you take a post-born one you can't sit idly by and let it happen without doing everything in love to stop it. And why wouldn't you attribute the taking of pre-born human genetically coded DNA with potential to become a fully human entity as seriously as you take a post- born one? What's the difference between the "blob of tissue" that could become the next Einstein and the crying nursing baby that could become the next Einstein? If you say one is just a blob of tissue and one is actually a baby, I say, they are both the next Einstein.
But the moral crisis in the destruction of the next Einstein does not fall exclusively on the despirate frightened almost-mother. It falls on society, the Nation as a whole. Because we as a whole Nation have to figure out a better way to make the Almost- Mother WANT to become the Mother of Einstein no matter what the state of her maturity, financial posture, family situation or state of social distress or disgrace in which she finds herself. And that is a much broader legislative challenge than telling her she does or does not have a choice. The "choice" rhetoric is just beside the point. It's so tired.
God gave women the Choice already whether they want to carry a conceived embryo to term or not. Women have the choice already, legal or not to eat right or at all, to slit their wrists in depressed despair, to jump off a bridge, or to take a bottle of 407 cleaning solution and shoot it up themselves to self- abort and self-sterilize themselves. No law is going to make a depressed despirate woman stop being depressed and despirate unless that law goes directly to the root of the reasons of why a pregnant woman would be so despirate or depressed that she kills her offspring before it sees daylight. No law is going to take the natural Choice away from women to protect or not protect, nurture or not nurture the life within them (certainly not one criminally penalizing the conduct- how much jail time should one get if one succeeds in suicide?) thus laws should be much better constructed to provide the socio-economic structures which encourage women to WANT their children and society has to be reformed at a much more basic level, welcoming in all life and all pregnant women.
There really should be a bi-partisan commission established to address this creatively-the surface of which is barely scratched because everyone is ducking the nasty rhetoric and name calling.
The Catholic Church is at the forefront of trying to address it in aggressively promoting abstinence/chastity (
see,
http://www.dawneden.com/), establishing pre and post abortion counseling such as the Gabriel Project (
http://www.gabrielproject.com/) and Raphael Project, many post-abortive counseling organizations and efforts, and praying and counseling outside abortion clinics. There is a group now praying and fasting starting Tuesday called "40 Days For Life" (
http://www.40daysforlife.com/) which is a national effort to raise prayer and consciousness regarding (
http://www.catholic-tube.com/) the scandal of neglect of potentially pregnant women and to broaden the perspective on what the "choices" really are to encourage keeping one's pre-born child alive. See,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09HfkzvlnYWe have to move the legislative dialogue out of the arena of the "choice" discussion into
the "incentive" discussion. Face it- women already have the choice. By punishing one choice does nothing to take away the ability to choose-it just punishes women (not men by the way whose interjecting intervention apparently caused the unwanted pregnancy so they bear great and equal moral responsibility while no Republican agenda has ever sought to make them bear
any legal responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy resulting in an abortion-as if the woman got pregnant by herself. That, ladies and gentlemen is what we call in the trade an "Equal Protection" problem).
"WHY SHOULD I KEEP IT?"
Start Answering that - and make her believe it- and you have done more than demanding Roe v. Wade be overturned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxqxSjJFxek&NR=1WHY? WHY?
Here I have to interject a slide show of my sister Katie, her husband Chris and their baby, my nephew Jack who was born when Katie was 42 in a very "high risk" situation. (they are on vacation and the back of the gallery are a few of their friends with their baby- also born to someone over 40)-http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=18ytx13r.3tzmw2lr&Uy=-1yvmws&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0Learning War No More-On the War in Iraq, no one can say enough - not Cindy Sheehan, Not Move-On, not John Kerry, not anyone, on the depraved, insane, absurd, immoral, tactically ignorant, obscenely murderous diplomatic and foreign policy failure that the war in Iraq is. The disgust-o-meter has flown off the radar. It is absolutely frightening that this country has been steered at the helm by the team of self-impressed, woefully misguided Foreign Policy pseudo-diplomats who so misunderstand world geopolitics that they have conned the country for 4 years (longer than all of WWII) into the illusion that this INSANE war is helpful to Israel or the US. It's beyond scandalous. It is frighteningly immoral. It is plainly unjust. It is probably criminal.
So the Congress/Senate needs to get off of Move-On and get back to the business of really trying to make the world a better safer place. I received this email which I pass along for your consideration.
Catholics United Opposes Partisan Attack on MoveOn.orgDear Friends,
Catholics United joined the following statement in response to yesterday's shameful move by Senate Republicans to shift public attention away from our nation's most pressing moral concern: ending the war in Iraq.
Catholics like us need now, more than ever, to add our voices to the growing chorus of Americans demanding real change in Iraq. If you have not done so already, please sign the Catholics for an End to the War petition at
http://www.catholicsforanend.org/.
If you have signed the petition, please help us get to our goal of 20,000 signatures.
Refer your family and friends today.
We are planing more activities in the coming weeks and months to make Catholics' voices heard, including advertising campaigns and local actions. Please stay tuned for further information.
In Peace,
Chris KorzenExecutive Director, Catholics United
Allies Statement in Support of MoveOn.org
The resolution condemning MoveOn.org yesterday sponsored by Senate Republicans was nothing more than a distraction from the real issue at hand: their unpopular support for a failed war in Iraq that is dragging on without end. Regardless of one's position on the ad in question, Senator Cornyn's resolution and the Republican assault on MoveOn.org represented a frightening attack on free speech and an outrageous attempt to intimidate an organization, its allies and the popular movement in America they have helped lead to end the war in Iraq. Rather than intimidating MoveOn.org or the coalition which is working to bring a responsible end to the war in Iraq, we are confident that such attempts to stifle debate will only further energize the progressive movement and the effort to end the war.
US Action Campaign for America's FutureAmericans United for Change Progressive States NetworkTrueMajority.orgAmerican Family VoicesWin Without WarCatholics Unitedand this should really tick you off: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092207C.shtmlTHE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFENothing Premised on a Lie will Stand because its Foundation is an Illusion. Ms. Butler,
A 2,000 word article, Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report — Official Account of 9/11 a "Joke" and a "Cover-up", appeared today on OpEdNews.
Link to article.
The article details severe criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report by seven CIA veterans and their calls for a new investigation. A brief quote from each of the individuals featured in the article appears below.
Please help disseminate this critically important information.
Best regards, Alan
Raymond McGovern, former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and 27-year CIA veteran, "I think at simplest terms, there's a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke."
William Christison, former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political, and 29-year CIA veteran, "We very seriously need an entirely new very high level and truly independent investigation of the events of 9/11. I think you almost have to look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a joke and not a serious piece of analysis at all."
Melvin Goodman, PhD, former Division Chief of the CIA's Office of Soviet Affairs and Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990, "The final report is ultimately a coverup. I don't know how else to describe it."
Robert Baer, 21-year CIA veteran and specialist in the Middle East, who was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal upon his retirement in 1997, "Until we get a complete, honest, transparent investigation …, we will never know what happened on 9/11."
Robert David Steele has 25 years of combined service in the CIA and the U.S. Marine Corps. Second ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988 - 1992. Member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University. "I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war. … I have to tell anyone who cares to read this: I believe it. I believe it enough to want a full investigation that passes the smell test of the 9/11 families as well as objective outside observers."
Lynne Larkin, former CIA Operations Officer who served in several CIA foreign stations before being assigned to the CIA's Counter-Intelligence Center. There, she co-chaired a multi-agency task force, which coordinated intelligence efforts among the many intelligence and law enforcement agencies. One of twenty-five signers of a letter to Congress expressing their concerns about "serious shortcomings," "omissions," and "major flaws" in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation.
David MacMichael, PhD, former Senior Estimates Officer at the CIA with special responsibility for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the CIA's National Intelligence Council. Prior to joining the CIA, he served for four years as a civilian counter-insurgency advisor to the U.S. government, and prior to that was a U.S. Marine Corps officer for ten years. One of twenty-five signers of a letter to Congress expressing their concerns about "serious shortcomings," "omissions," and "major flaws" in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation.
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