Another Rendition

[Clark Santos]

Frances,
	You sure weren't born in the Baptist church, where it was an outright 
sin to shop anywhere but HEBs. Do you really think Christianity and 
religions were founded to save souls and get people closer to God.
	Think how much more your car registration would cost without free 
license plates.

EL PATRON	

On Mar 9, 2005, at 1:12 AM, Frances Morey wrote:

Ramsey,
I'm scared, too. Just when we can't believe anything worse can happen, 
it does. I feel that the Know-Nothings led by the Neocons, rather than 
the christians, are the real weapons of our national destruction. It 
isn't christian to withhold stem cell research depriving countless 
people who would benefit from it. It isn't christian to incarcerate 
more people than any nation on earth! It isn't christian to run a 
government for the protection of the rich to the detriment of the 
majority of the populace, rejecting a hike in the minimum wage, which 
60% of the voters favor, turning our nation into a mean spirited, 
angry, punitive and heartless place. That marijuana is cynically kept 
illegal because the war on drugs feeds the judicial-incarceration 
industry is another instance where 60% of the people favor 
decriminalization and the legislation does not reflect the opinion of 
the public, indeed, countermands it. Where's the democracy?
The poor are getting poorer, and can't support their churches, so the 
"faith based" funding props them up, in exchange for delivering the 
vote. That ain't christian, it's an insidious plot to control the 
population as it squeezes them from middle class into poverty, while 
the rich bask in greedy triumph with tax cuts.
Christianity hasn't sold out, the churches that cloak themselves in 
it have. There is a difference.
 From being on the road, Katfish reinforced what we tend to take for 
granted--that we live in a kind of rarified social hothouse here in 
Austin. Most of the country is the way he and Della found it and 
reported it to us. I don't feel so bad about not being able to travel. 
I'm just glad I can hang on here.
Frances
----- Original Message -----
  From: Ramsey Wiggins
To: GHETTO2 at LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 11:19 PM
Subject: Re: Rendition

Seems to me every time christians get a lot of power, people get burned 
at the stake -- to save their souls, of course. Power and rigid 
ideology produce ever more strenuous coercion every time they get 
together. If people dissent, more and more power is applied, ratcheting 
up the level of coercion to torture, mass imprisonments, and finally 
mass murder.

We could also compare the republican putsch to Stalin, whose rise to 
power had a similar arc: a reform movement -- the russian revolution -- 
based on a rigid ideology, co-opted by a powerful psychopath and 
propped up by platitudes about the general welfare and fear of enemies 
without and within. By the time the secret police are disappearing 
people, the Stockholm syndrome sets in and everybody loves big brother.

We need to start keeping track of one another. The way we carry on, it 
wouldn't surprise me if one of us woke up in an egyptian jail one day.

Seriously.

RW


On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at 07:41 AM, Gerry wrote:


Gonzales, the American hero poor boy who made it to the top, is lying 
through his big white teeth. Will this be his role now, apologist for 
war crimes? In the New Yorker there is a long, in-depth article on 
rendition and how since 9/11 the US has sent hundreds of prisoners 
abroad to be tortured. This practice is, perhaps, the most dastardly of 
all the practices engaged in by the Bushies and Rummy, including firing 
on unidentified vehicles occupied by Italian journalists. I guarantee 
the NY article will make your flesh crawl. Now they are denying it in 
spite of a ton of evidence to the contrary. War criminals, torturers, 
christians run amok. They are tainting all of us and digging such a 
deep hole we may not be able to crawl out of it in our lifetimes.
G
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