“MARK MY WORD, IF AND WHEN THESE PREACHERS GET CONTROL OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THEY’RE SURE TRYING TO DO SO, IT’S GOING TO BE A TERRIBLE DAMN PROBLEM. FRANKLY THESE PEOPLE FRIGHTEN ME. POLITICS AND GOVERNING DEMAND COMPROMISE. BUT THESE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THEY ARE ACTING IN THE NAME OF GOD, SO THEY CAN’T AND WON’T COMPROMISE. I KNOW I’VE TRIED TO DEAL WITH THEM” Barry Goldwater YES YES Republican Barry Goldwater
The fathers of America, the founding fathers, the men who wrote the constitution were NOT devout Christians as so many Americans prefer to believe. Preached from the pulpits or conservative podiums many Americans are lectured and choose to believe that following these “ardent God worshiping Christians” will save them and the country…some day! The founding fathers are referred to, employed, adopted by fibbing politicians and doubt-dealing pundits when trying to enforce a belief or theory. Many American Christians call the United States constitution a “sacred inspired text”. One then needs to ask why, which part and authored and written by whom?
“We want to impute to them our ideologies, our religion, because in them seems what we believe in” says the Utah Valley University President. However, historians who have seriously studied and researched the lives of these founding fathers claim most Americans assume, theorize, far too much about what these men really believed and how their beliefs, personal convictions, influenced the American constitution and it’s subsequent laws..
No doubt these founding fathers would have been quick to acknowledge it was an imperfect incomplete document, just remember slavery and suffrage! The founding fathers OWNED people and Martha Washington, the First Lady of the Land, as other women, could not vote. The writers therefore cleverly allowed for future flexibility in the document. They wisely created a constitution that recognized necessary changes would and could be made as the new nation matured.
There is however a reason why these men in the 1700s created the rules for a new country based on a strict separation of church (religion) and state (government).They had witnessed the negative influence in European countries where and when the Church and State merged. They believed that religion and government will both “exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together”. They did not want a state religion, rather the rights for all faiths which have spiritual and practical applications. The Father of the Constitution, James Madison, is responsible for the first amendment, the separation of church and state. It is he who argues of letting religion survive “on its own merits”. Madison was joined by the founding fathers warning against the peril and danger of the encroachment of Ecclesiastical Bodies in government.
George Washington was a member of the Church of England (Episcopal) and attended services near his home in Virginia. However although he accepted the philosophy of a supreme being rejected prophecy, miracles, and revelation. He was considered a Deist.
John Adams was a Congregationalist who later changed to a Unitarian, believing in the resurrection however discarding the Trinity and that Jesus was divine.
Ben Franklin, of puritan decent, was raised an Episcopalian but identified himself, like Washington, as a Deist. He was the epitome, the embodiment, of the Renaissance Man, widely diverse in all areas of life and belief.
Thomas Paine, he too would be considered a follower of the Deism philosophy.
James Madison, who was responsible for the disestablishment of the Anglican, Church of England, in Virginia, was the owner of hundreds of slaves who worked on his plantation.
It was Madison who summarized the first amendment as ” CONGRESS SHOULD NOT ESTABLISH A RELIGION AND ENFORCE THE LEGAL OBSERVATION OF IT BY LAW, NOR COMPEL MEN TO WORSHIP GOD IN ANY MANNER CONTRARY TO THEIR CONSCIENCE OR THAT ONE MIGHT OBTAIN A PRE-EMINENCE, OR TWO COMBINED TOGETHER AND ESTABLISH A RELIGION TO WHICH THEY WOULD COMPEL OTHERS TO CONFORM.” (August 15,1789)
It was John Adams who is quoted “I UNDERSTAND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IT WAS, AND IS, A REVELATION. BUT HOW HAS IT HAPPENED THAT MILLIONS OF FABLES, TALES, LEGENDS, HAVE BEEN BLENDED WITH BOTH JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION THAT HAVE MADE THEM THE MOST BLOODY RELIGION THAT EVER EXISTED?” (December 27/1816)
The American founding fathers were creative visionary wise men who believed in a God, but each in their own way. Their individual beliefs were personal, practical, educated and without religious passion. Their intention in the drafting of the United States Constitution was there be a written appreciation of that individual liberty, choice, to or not to, follow a faith as the citizen himself chooses without hindrance, impediment, or the support financially and or dictate by rule of law of any government.
TRUTH: The founding Fathers were brilliant visionaries but not divine DEVOUT CHRISTIANS!!! and as Ronald Reagan said “Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief nor will we ever. Church and State are and must remain separate.”
Perhaps the founding fathers and those Presidents that followed might add…..BE AWARE OF THE RELIGIOUS PASSIONS OF THOSE DEVOTED TO THE DOCTRINE ONLY THEIR BELIEF AND GOD EXISTS AND USE OF GOVERNMENT IS BUT A TOOL TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOAL.
DEMOCRACY depends on respect. CAPITALISM depends on trust.
When respect and trust are under attack from a countries political, social and religious establishment, the cost is growing cynicism. It finds expression in the likes of the Tea Party in USA, religious fundamentalism, and the Occupiers. Bewilderment and anger brew in the populace. Economic disaster quickly prevails, without trust citizens avoid even the most sensible economic offers for fear of risk with the once regarded institutions. Lacking respect and void of trust, the citizenry thinks, and facts confirm, the “game” is rigged and not in their favor. Millions believe the banks, Wall Street, the government has sold them out. The mountainous inequality in wealth and power between the SUPER wealthy 1% and the rest is fodder to this hopelessness, frustration and fear. Seriously concerning, they, the 99%, become prey, gullible to ambitious political “nuts” promising the impossible, the illogical, with their synthetic faces and fast talking tongues from their political podiums and religious pulpits. Lacking respect and trust a polarized society develops in each country, the formula spins hatred from fear and frustration.
A political spin is woven taking advantage of this fear and frustration. Political spin bosses control the information we read and use that reality to manipulate to their economic and political advantage. The assumption is made that the voting public is ignorant, naive, immature and hence vulnerable. Political parties, politicians, religious leaders, create a distortion of facts and concentrate on distractions to keep the citizens from focusing on the real issues that require attention and CHANGE. Social issues are prioritized. Citizens are fed black and white thinking and outright lies through the media distortions. Some “news” stations spew fanatic passionate controlled “information”, making voter emotionally reactive, polarized and easily manipulated.
The lack of RESPECT and TRUST also manufactures a new generation hardened to consideration of your neighbor, callous to equal rights for everyone, shameless to belonging and contributing to your community, disdain for the less fortunate, and inept to improving the environment. The cultural changes also easily spin a society of selfishness, greed, arrogance, wrapped up in oneself, with the first and only commandment MONEY. It’s the creation of the ME GENERATION. Like the 1% – this new generation’s slogan: HELL WITH EVERYONE ELSE.
I DON’T REMEMBER:
American Teachers, public employees, planned parenthood, Nation Public Radio, organized labor, crashing the US stock market, wiping out over half of American 401KS, grabbing TRILLIONS in taxpayer funded bail outs, spilling and dumping oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and then giving THEMSELVES BILLIONS in bonuses …… and pay no taxes…..!!!!!!
NO, I DON’T REMEMBER
America is in a crisis. Economic downturn, educational losses, political stalemate, mountainous debt, a disappearing Middle Class, a slipping rating in world status, and the highest POVERTY in its’ history.
The U.S. economic system is dying. Instead of addressing the toxic problem, like unemployment, debt, economic inequality, lacking education, repeated negative budgets every year……..U.S. politicians are busy addressing contraception, abortion, gay marriage, woman’s “rights”, God in government, and YES, contemplating another war. They forget America has not paid for the last two wars they charged “on the country’s credit card”… Blaming each other for the country’s problems they have managed to achieve an approval rating of their citizens UNDER 10%. Obviously these political in-it-for-life hacks, do not have mirrors in their homes, they certainly don’t look at themselves!
NUTS most politicians from both parties in the USA are LEADER-LESS NUTS.
Running around the U.S. these masqueraders offering hope and change and giving the citizens a vague sense that things will get BETTER is NOT going to work. They cloak the monumental U.S. problems into home town mentality and bias. Their pumped up religious, social and racial agendas are insulting and camouflage for the true problems of the country. Most of the politicians in America are much too busy either trying to get elected or to stay in power to worry about or tackle these very serious REAL problems. PROBLEMS which are quickly killing the American economy, souring the American people and destroying any semblance of the “fair and equal” American Dream.
The United States population, the citizens, share the blame. These days all many Americans seem to want is to watch a “good” TV show. Americas’ problems are for others to solve. Voting? why that deed is for Dancing with the Stars or America’s got Talent…..Perhaps the Disney World inspired “paint job” has worked. .Most Americans are under the delusion the United States will always be the wealthiest nation in the world. That’s certainly what we hear on our TVs, where even “news” is often entertainment!
“QUICK, SEND IN THE CLOWNS” “WELL MAYBE NEXT YEAR” Thanks Stephen Sondheim…….but they’re already here…….
CAN WE IMAGINE, DREAM……enjoy a fantasy? YES, without dreams how do we aspire? What happens to hope? How do we strive for a better life or struggle through another threatening day? Recognize our goals, our sexuality, and be allowed to live and enjoy our own lives without interference and conflict? OUR IMAGINATION AND DREAMS are not yet controlled by government, big corporations, religious institutions, political manipulators, or THE ONE PERCENT…………. …… Not that they haven’t tried…
IMAGINE: Our world void of physical conflict, disputes settled by conversation, honor for human life, respect required for mother nature and all the living, enraged angry words replaced by sincere and constructive deeds. NO wars
IMAGINE: Governments and their leaders listening to and orchestrating laws dedicated to all their citizens best interests. Each individual citizen having the same punch and influence as the corporations and super wealthy currently enjoy. Special interest lobbies serving the minority over the many are not allowed.
IMAGINE: Giant multinational mega-corporations being stopped from stamping the rights of workers throughout the world. Unable to bribe governments and politicians. Forced to pay a living wage, provide clean safe working conditions, caring for their employees. Corporations, paying fair and appropriate taxes in the countries they do business.
IMAGINE: The termination of billions in permanent or long term tax incentives to the oil, coal, gas industries bent on keeping the world dependent on oil products and the world’s people choked. Redirecting tax breaks for wind, bio fuels, and solar energy, eliminating the planets overrun junk yard of coal, oil, natural gas pipelines, belching refineries, and gas stations.
IMAGINE: Fundamental changes in governments at all levels starting with a term limit to each and every elected politician. Politicians being accountable, jailed, for mistreatment of their citizens, accepting bribes of any description, officeholders unable to sell off their natural resources. Politicians dedicated to constructive policies, programs, taxes, and tributes, reflecting the voters at the poll booth.
IMAGINE: Fat cat money, corporation contributions, Super PACs, outlawed in public elections, making it illegal to “BUY YOURSELF A PRESIDENT” or political influence.
IMAGINE: Medical services being a human RIGHT for all citizens and not a privilege. Medical facilities being Not-For-Profit institutions, not driven by any need for generous dividends to stock holders and the “over the top” bonus for their CEOs…
IMAGINE: Women being recognized as equal participants in the citizenry of the world. Females with control over their own bodies and health choices with the ability to decide how many children to have and when without interference from government. Women with equality and opportunity, able to contribute within their societies, their fullest physical and mental potential.
IMAGINE: All the governments recognizing the global environmental changes, cooperating in combating the impact of warming. Attending the June meeting in Rio with urgency and recognition of the need for a bold solution, void of government politics and self serving corporate interests. Countries whose government fully undertake the task of cherishing this planet and all its creatures as caretakers not abusers.
IMAGINE: Every child not only has a right to a public education, but receives one. Kids of all ethnic backgrounds enter this world with a chance for a good proud life, find employment of their choice, live with dignity and enter the “life game” on an unbiased, fair and equal playing field.
IMAGINE: Citizens able to recognize and then freely follow their born sexuality and life style, without government intervention or religious hypocritical preaching. People able to embrace, without threat, who they love and choose to share their life. A world where governments stay out of citizens bedrooms.
IMAGINE: The news we read, view on our TV and hear on our radio is dependable, true, unadulterated fact void of bias. Media corporations who’s owners distort fact for their selfish, political, and financial motives are removed from the air waves, remembering the air waves belong to the people.
IMAGINE: Faiths coexist. Citizens of different faiths enjoy detente, respect the religious values of others and heed each one’s choice as it may be. Clerical leaders are forbidden to use a pulpit to preach hate, distrust, disrespect, nor dictate a citizen’s political direction. A world where religion and state are totally separate, insulated, legally divorced.
IMAGINE:……
“THEY CLAIM TO BE SUPER PATRIOTS, BUT THEY WOULD DESTROY EVERY LIBERTY GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION. THEY DEMAND FREE ENTERPRISE, BUT ARE THE SPOKESMEN FOR MONOPOLY AND VESTED INTERESTS. THEIR FINAL OBJECTIVE TOWARD WHICH ALL THEIR DECEIT IS DIRECTED IS TO CAPTURE POLITICAL POWER SO THAT, USING THE POWER OF THE STATE AND THE POWER OF THE MARKET SIMULTANEOUSLY THEY MAY KEEP THE COMMON MAN IN ETERNAL SUBJECTION”
VP Henry Wallace was talking of American Fascists…..HIS WORDS APPROPRIATE DESCRIBING THE POLITICAL SITUATION 2012 IN US
The Lord is my shepherd while I crusade for office
He leadeth me to the money counter, author of big checks
He giveth me Murdoch’s bias Fox News
He restoreth my faith and certitude in K Street
He teacheth me to sway words for their clients’ pursuit
He leadeth me past truth, to lie with my fingers crossed
Yea though I am on television daily
I shall concern not about the poor, old, sick, thy 99%
Thy special interest groups , they comfort me
Thou gaveth five United States Supreme Court Justices to support me
Bewildering mine enemies with a miracle, Thou created corporations “people”
Now legal, no sin, no need for small contributions, or covert money in thy dark of day
Thou maketh political office FOR SALE, sold to the highest bidder
Thou anointest my campaign with emotional and social distractions
My campaign runeth from the significant and earthly issues
Thou allowest me to bestow the American dream only on the chosen few
And the Super PACs will support me to the end of my usefulness
And I will, intern, render my supporters from my elected office forever.
AD VICTORIAM !! AMEN
” THE COUNTRY IS GOVERNED FOR THE RICHEST, FOR THE CORPORATIONS, FOR THE BANKERS, THE LAND SPECULATORS AND FOR THE EXPLOITERS OF LABOUR. THE MAJORITY OF MANKIND ARE WORKING PEOPLE. SO LONG AS THEIR FAIR COMMANDS – THE OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF THEIR LIVELIHOODS ARE SET AT NAUGHT, WE CAN HAVE NEITHER MEN’S RIGHTS NOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS. THE MAJORITY OF MANKIND IS GROUND DOWN BY INDUSTRIAL OPPRESSION IN ORDER THAT THE SMALL REMNANT MAY LIVE IN EASE”. HELEN KELLER
Sad! Her quote is very appropriate in today’s world too.
‘IN THIS WORLD THERE IS NOTHING CERTAIN BUT DEATH AND TAXES” Ben Franklin Times change. Ben Franklin is due a letter…..
2012
Dear Ben,
Now we know you were one of the founding fathers of the United States. You were an author, politician, diplomat, inventor, satrist and businessman and you made lots of quotes like your one about Death and Taxes. You were so right about death. These days even our club of the incredibly wealthy, (we have billionaires now) the super powerful; they call us “the one percent”, cannot buy our way out of the ultimate ending, DEATH. BUT, here’s where it all changes and you were wrong. You see Ben, now in America you can avoid paying taxes. It is not impossible. It is no longer “Certain” like you remember. It isn’t difficult either as long as you “buy” the necessary tools. I recommend a team of highly paid lawyers, an army of accountants, be sure to own your politicians, “golf” (you know what I mean) with a few important judges and finance (in the millions) something new to you, called LOBBIES. It’s a great formula because it works, Ben I recommend it, it works! Look at me, I and my 1% club own everything, there isn’t much left, I grabbed MY American Dream. Now I recognize you wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are equal in rights and that government is the servant NOT the master of the people. Ben, that’s not the way it is today. We live in a MODERN age. All men are not equal and its ok to have government be master as long as my club controls that government.
Let me explain: You must understand times have changed seriously to when you helped form the constitution. The constitution hasn’t been changed verbally but recently with the help of five justices in the Supreme Court and a self serving dysfunctional Congress new definitions (interpretations) have been allowed and “attached” to the framers document. Ben, rest assured it is still precious and kept in Washington to view. It is still tediously referred to in debates when the pundits want to s t r e t c h their points and comfortably forgotten when they don’t. Since you and your associates Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine and James Madison have left us it has been used to justify all kinds of political, lifestyle, environmental, and social decisions. Some you guys may even approve. However in the last twenty years our society has seriously shifted. In these few years we have created a club, made up of 1% who own, control and are SO RICH. Yes, we do have the others. We call them the 99%. Yes, I know you included them in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution but that was years ago.
Since you have been away we have redefined your friend Thomas Jefferson’s “We the people”. Ben it sounded great when the committee first drafted it over 200 years ago but these days nearly all the country’s wealth is in the hands of a tiny tiny few. It really means “We the rich and powerful”. Now understand we did not change the lovely writing, we merely adapted the “understanding” of the words. The judges and politicians don’t publicly admit our new definition – you can imagine why – but it is needed to comply to the MODERN American way.
Try to recognize it was a stroke of selfish genius that our club members have been able to create a modern interpretation of the constitution. Today, most Americans don’t bother to read the document you guys wrote. We all have more important concern focusing on our growing wealth, keeping it all in the family, and yes, granting ourselves healthy bonuses, (Now Christmas comes a few times each year in the MODERN calendar) and of course avoiding taxes. The others, the 99%, we leave to their reality shows on our corporate owned and controlled TV stations. We even have one called “Dancing with the Stars”, little like the minuet but MODERN! We manipulate the news with an army of political hacks who have become opinionated bigoted broadcasters. They are encouraged to sprinkle fear, bias, religion, abortion, God, guns and gays, even hate. We call in DISTRACTION. Our club keeps the others, the 99%. content, entertained.
I confess, we owe our success to “our” politicians. We could not have done it without them. We bank rolled their political campaigns with millions in “contributions” so they owe us. Some things never change like now It is pay back time. You once said “never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today”, so following your advice the one percent have taken control of all the financial institutions, corporations, press (yes we still have one but not like your old printing press), natural resources, and become so successful why we are BIG – TOO BIG TO FAIL. and we did it quickly like you suggested.
Our “friends” in congress have made the framers’ constitution look like a Swiss cheese – just joking – but we have bought, whoops, manged, lots of under the table tag-on holes in the laws so “We the Rich and Powerful”…don’t have to pay those “certain” taxes you were wrong about. Ben, would you believe these days you can sit home on your plantation just like the old days, do absolutely nothing, earn millions of $$$$$$ (called investments) and pay less than half the tax rate the gardeners get hooked for working your estate.
You wrote “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” Ben here you were 100% right. Money does everything and we do it all for money..we needed our friends to make it possible but it worked like I told you.
Your dear friend
a MODERN ONE PERCENT AMERICAN