IT WAS NEVER A "COLD" WAR

I know I’ve written on this before. And I’ll write about it again. Why? Because the women and children were the ones really caught in the cross hairs. The war ended in the early nineties but those countries are still broken.

We called it the Cold War. Makes it sound almost like a chess game doesn’t it? Well, there was nothing “cold” about it for the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. In Central and South America all the oligarchs had to do was whisper subversion and the US came trotting up like Pavlov’s dog.
The US invaded Guatemala in the fifties on the advice of the Dulles brothers. One was secretary of state. The other was the head of the CIA AND on the board of United Fruit and the new democratically elected possibly leftist government was not in the best interests of that company. So it had to go. Does the term conflict of interest ring a bell? Events went downhill after that.

Most of these kids are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Countries that the US has interfered in the decades and that took the brunt of Reagan’s “war on communism” back in the eighties. If you don’t mind getting your heart seriously dented find a copy of Promised land by lay missionary Scott Wright. He spent a total of eight years in country working with Salvadoran refugees both in the camps and in the country. He lived with them, fled with them, prayed with them, hid with them, worked in the refugee camps with them, shared their beans and tortillas. When then had them. Went hungry with them when there was nothing. Watched as those with almost nothing shared what little they had.,

We shot them, bombed them mortored the, burned their houses, burned their crops. Well, WE didn’t. We just supplied the guns, ammo, choppers, fighter bombers,advisors,  training at the School of the Assassins, and little number that I haven’t read but is available on Amazon. The little hundred odd page magnum opus is titled Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare. It was the CIA’s how to manual for the war in Nicaragua.

At first the CIA tried to blame the document on an overzealous contractor. Later a few mid level officials were reprimanded or suspended. Finally, in 1987, the senior officials who were responsible for producing and distributing the manual were identified. But, the head of the CIA, William Casey, blocked any disciplinary action. “There’s no reason to discipline them for one little slip up.” And I’m sure that it didn’t stay limited to Nicaragua and that playbook was straight out of Viet Nam. The tragic gift that just keeps on giving.

The Salvadorans have been and are a resilient people. For the parents, if these kids have parents to send their kids north, it must be pure hell down there. In more than a few cases the kids, especially girls and young women, are fleeing their own families who have tried to traffic them or get them involved in the drug trade that they’re tied to.

Many of these children would probably qualify as refugees under the treaty Bush signed. If we can keep them in the US long enough to pry their real stories out of them.

I gotta tell you, reading this (and other books is causing a major shift in how I view this country and the “problems” we believe are so earthshaking. I believe deeply in the separation of church and state. And I know that there are groups that would try to impose their brand of Christianity on the rest of us. Good luck with that bro in a country that has almost as many guns on the streets as people. But, somehow facing listening to a sectarian prayer before a meeting pales when you read the stories of men and women murdered because they were lay church leaders. It may come to that here. I hope not. And I hope sharing the stories of men and women who faced the fire and came through might help just a little.

YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT

Back in 2012 the VP candidate for the libertarian party was Wayne Allyn Root. Granted he has a poli sci degree from Columbia but his claim to fame is as a sports handicapper. That's right. They ran a guy who pushes gambling as a business. Only in America.

Oh, and he graduated from Columbia the same year as the president. He doesn't remember seeing him on campus. Seriously? How many of you who went to college remember anybody except the people in your dorm and would you recognize them today? Even those who shared a major with you? I know I wouldn't. But of course with a little spin you can make anything out of it.

Mr. Root also claims that there were at least a million fraudulent ballots cast in the last election. Even though nobody in any state has been able to find more than a handfull of fraudulent ballots. I am getting so fucking sick of this crap. Truth? What the hell is that? Has about as much chance of surviving as a snowball on a sidewalk in July.

Oh and I ran across this because an in law posted a link on FB to an outfit called the Conservative Tribune. And Politifact rates the claim as false.

TRUE PEACE

Is more than the absence of violence.

I’ve been piecing my way through a bio of Oscar Romero. Unbelievably, almost painfully detailed. That’s why I’m tending to read topic lines on paragraphs. Frankly I’ve learned more than I ever needed to know about the rift between the archbishop (maybe one quarter his making, three quarters the others) most of his bishops, the papal nuncio and a few of the clergy. Given the level of opposition to just about everything and the backbiting the man had a patience of a saint. Perhaps a little too patient. However, I believe canon law frowns on introducing an obstinate subordinate to the old Missouri soup bone when he goes behind your back for the umpteenth time.




The church was supposed to stay traditional, all this talk of justice and fairness and access to land and the right to organize and so on is just disrupting everything. We’re supposed to preach peace and the joys of the hereafter.



I’m reminded of an old saying. I’m not sure who said it first. “Peace is more than the absence of conflict.” Too true especially when the so called peace is being imposed from above at the point of a gun, with check points, midnight arrests, bombs, mortars, lies, deceit, and slander.



No, I’m still not much of a believer but I do believe that the peasant church in Latin America has a lot to teach us Norte Americanos. Especially for those who are trying to stem the slide of most of the American church into total irrelevance, Frankly, I’m in the let it crash and burn corner. Maybe when to dust settles something can be salvaged from the wreck. And maybe we’ll quit pretending that corporations are not only people but they go to church. Phooey.

BACKGROUND

There is an excellent documentary, Monsenor:The final journey of Oscar Romero. Unfortunately outside of a couple of YouTube excerpts it appears to only be available for purchase. You can instant rent damn near anything on Amazon, but not this one. I'm not recommending buying on my say so, but a church library might have a copy.

If the film were just about Romero I probably wouldn't have bothered. However, it makes extensive use of archival news film from those last three years. Army patrols, bodies, army patrols, frightened men standing to one side with their arms tied behind their backs. A mark of the death squads. More army patrols. Mothers gathering together to demand to know what happened to their disappeared children. One women had four sons. They were all missing. I doubt if she ever found out happened to them. Mostly peaceful street demonstrations that were cut short in a hail of bullets. Crowded, narrow city streets. Almost claustrophobic even on film.

The interview that stands out for me is with a woman who was a lay churchworker at the time. She held Bible studies in her home. During one meeting a newcomer asked her if she knew that three men were sitting in a car outside her house watching who was coming and going? Gulp time. I don't think it ever got so bad that being discovered with a Bible could get you killed. But, next time somebody complains about how bad Christians have it here ask them if anybody has tagged a building in their neighborhood with "be a patriot, kill a priest lately."

In fact. The next time some paranoid idjit natters on about how oppressive this government is gently remind them so far our children aren't being disappeared, our neighbors aren't being beaten or worse; their bodies found in the local dump or by the side of the road. In most of the country we don't hear gunfire or screams in the night.

Even after he was murdered the killers couldn't take a day off. The crowds for his funeral overflowed to the plaza outside the cathdral. Somebody threw a smoke bomb and the killing began. It continued and went on for ten long, tortured years. Those kids on the border are just the tip of the iceberg. We've sown the wind. I hope we can survive the whirlwind.

WHOSE FACE DO YOU SEE?

“Each time we look upon the poor, on the farmworkers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton, or the farmer who joins the caravan of workers looking to earn their savings for the year…remember, there is the face of Christ…

The face of Christ is among the baskets and the sacks of the farmworker; the face of Christ is among those who are tortured and mistreated in the prisons; the face of Christ dying of hunger in the children who have nothing to eat; the face of Christ is in the poor who ask for their voices to be heard. How can the church deny this request when it is Christ who is telling us to speak for Him?” Oscar Romero

And I might add that the face of Christ is in the faces of those children on the border. I’m assuming that at least some of the protestors claim to be Christians. I suspect that most of them belong to the “Jesus died for my sins” wing of American Christianity and that’s as far they go in following Him. The hubris. My sins are so horrible that Jesus had to die to atone for them. This isn’t the only theology out there, but sure as H E double toothpicks is the one you hear about the most.

That and the “if you believe hard enough God will make you rich etc.”  Also known as the prosperity gospel. Their pastors tend to live very well since the measure of your belief is measured by how much you give. I'm not sure how well their followers live but, hope and idiocy springs eternal.

I know there are good people working their butts off down there with little support or recognition. Sure haven’t seen their faces on the news. And now the house is working the change the law so we can just scoop these kids up and send them back to hell without even a hearing to determine if they’re refugees or not. Frankly, I’d like to send some of them down there in their underwear with no ID and no money. They wouldn’t last a day.

DEAR MR. REAGAN

June 1987. Ronald Reagan, safe behind a wall of Secret Service agents, challenged the leader of the Soviet Union to tear down the Berlin Wall. The worshippers of Saint Ronnie oooohed and awed and swooned over the courage of “Great Communicator.” (excuse me while I go throw up)

1987. The civil war in Guatamala had been going on since the seventies. The main targets anybody supporting labor unions, teachers, preachers, supporters of land reform and especially the natives of the country. There were whole sections where the religious leaders had been driven out and lay people took their lives in their hands smuggling the means of celebrating communion in sacks of corn or beans. Being discovered meant death. If you were lucky they didn’t torture you first and mutilate your body afterwards.

1987. The civil war in El Salvador had been going on since the late seventies. Foreign church workers had been deported. Local priests had been murdered. Archbishop Romero probably signed his own death warrant in a homily given two weeks before his assassination. It concluded with “In the name of God, then, in the name of the suffering people, whose cries rise to the heavens, every day more tumultuously, I ask you, I beg, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression!”

That was 1980. Later that year four American church women were brutally murdered. El Mozote, other villages, nameless refugees. Villagers driven from their homes, fleeing on foot, often for days or weeks. The old, the weak and the young dying on the side of the trail. This went on for over ten long, murderous years.

Honduras. No civil war but lots of refugee camps. These are the countries the children are trying to escape from, Countries with minimal governments but lots of gangs. These kids are just trying to survive. At least some of them may have relatives in this country who came as refugees a generation ago. These are the countries we broke. We’ve never faced it. We’ve never admitted it

We didn’t hear the voices that just might have cried out Mr. Reagan stop sending the gun ships. Mr. Reagan, stop sending the bullets, mortars, guns and weapons that are killing us. Mr. Reagan, stop training the soldiers that are killing us. Mr. Reagan, let us live. Let us choose how we want to live. Give us the chance to raise our children, not bury them.

Oh God/dess this is too much. I pray my nephews and their children won’t be called on to answer for our sins.

POISONS ARE US AKA MONSANTO

Like so many stories, I stumbled across this by accident in another story. More about that later. There is an epidemic of chronic kidney disease that affects several countries on three continents. The disease affects the tubules of the kidneys. And its occuring in coutries that are ill equipped to handle chronic diseases of any kind. An epidemic that hasn’t hit the news in this country. And the scientist in the interview has a scathing opinion of why. The epidemiological study was done in Sri Lanka. With a population of just over twenty million there have been at least four hundred thousand victims with twenty thousand deaths. At that rate there would be at least six million victims in this country. And while our technology is better, I doubt this country could handle that many dialysis patients in any state.

The disease currently affects mainly farm workers in

• Sri Lanka
• India
• El Salvador
• Costa Rica
• Nicaragua
• Honduras
• Egypt
• Tunisa
• Viet Nam 

The disease hits working men between the ages of thirty and fifty. The prime ages for the workers at the bottom of the social scale. The evidence points to a combination of glyphosate and the heavy metals in the water. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in RoundUp. The poison Monsanto and corporate America keeps pushing on the rest of the world. With deadly results. Separately neither is lethal. Together? People are dying.

And one of the commenters apparently had some reading comprehension problems. Yes, Sri Lanka has limestone formations that put calcium and other heavy elements into the water. However, they've been growing rice on the island for two millenia, with apparent problems. Add the glyphosate and we are in a whole new world.

BALONEY BELONGS IN SANDWICHES

And no place else. If anyone is interested in the rest of the types of baloney out there and how to recognize it here's link to the article on RationalWiki. Their examples tend to refuting creationism and intelligent design. I'm a little cruder than the late Dr. Sagan. but the word bullshit rhymes so well with kit it's hard to resist. There's so much out there to take on. That you can poison your way to food security. That you can keep pumping ancient water out of the ground to grow grass in deserts. That we can plunder, pillage and pollute without consequences. That we can take it all leaving nothing for our children. Or great nieces as the case may be. Hey, my portfolio is fat and happy. I've got mine.

Caught the end of an old Errol Flynn film, They Died With Their Boots On. He played Custer. Some of the history is iffy but there's an exchange between Custer and part of a cabal whose actions have set the Lakota and their neighbors on the warpath. The twit is holding out for making as much money has you can. Custer points out that you can't take the money with you, but you can take your honor and your good name. As I said the history in the film is iffy, but the sentiment is oh so true. Two or three genertions down the road will this generation be praised, or damned as the exploiters, pillagers and plunderers that they are.

No, we aren't all guilty, but it's being done in our names and we can't seem to stop it.  

THEY AREN'T EVEN TRYING TO HIDE ANYMORE

This piece on Huffington Post is absolutely, totally, freakin' priceless. There was a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away when our representatives at least pretended to respect us. Part of the time.

Much time was spent in the Oregon legislature this session debating whether counties could ban GMO seeds. It finally died. Oregon has a world class organic seed industry and possible cross contamination from say, GMO beets had the farmers in a swivet.

There's a bill in congress that would forbid states from passing anti GMO laws or laws requiring labeling. All for our own good of course since we're to stupid to understand the labels and the companies have spent millions of dollars and Euros proving that the damn things are "safe."

God forbid that local people should have a say in what's grown in their fields and what's in the food we eat. God forbid that farmers save and share the seeds they're grown for decades if not centuries. God forbid that we should question the almighty corporations of Dow and Monsanto instead of crawling on our bellies in worshipful adoration.

I've been wondering for awhile where the money comes from to fund the anti evolution crowd. After all anybody with half a brain and basic understanding of natural selection will realize that breeding crops you can poison without killing them, but killing the weeds is futile. A scenario that's playing out right now. The main ingredient in RoundUp is fading. So now they want to up the ante and ok 2 4 D for wider use.

Yeah, 2 4 D. One of the ingrdients in Agent Orange. Yeah, that Agent Orange. The chemical cocktail that the military spent decades denying was poisoning our troops.

Make sure that the local farmers have access to land and water. They'll feed themselves and their families. Jeebus Kerist they've been doing it for hundreds of years. And they'll keep doing it if the corporations, the US and the plutocrats get the hell out of the way.

THE BILL COLLECTOR IS AT THE DOOR

There seems to be a bipartisan effort to urge the president to send as many of those unaccompanied children back to their hell holes as quickly as possible.

The majority of these kids aren't from Mexico. They're from Guatamala, El Salvador and Honduras. Three countries that took the brunt of our "anti subeversion" efforts back in the seventies. These countries are lines on maps. I wouldn't call them nations. Salvador traded the death squads for the the gangs and many of these children just might qualify as refugees under the treaty we signed during the Bush administration.

However, allowing these kids to go before a judge and testify under oath will open a can of worms many politicians on both sides of the aisle would prefer to keep firmly closed. Under several feet of concrete if at all possible.

The truth is a funny animal. You can clip its wings. You can starve it. You can try to ignore it but it won't leave your door. Long past time to face up and lance the boil.

And I don't know whether to laugh or cry over all the hoo haw over the supposed health threat posed by these kids. Nobody worried about how healthy the illegal adults were over the years.

HOWEVER...

I am feeling pretty damned disgusted right now. I can sympathize with the liberal and progressive Christians who are trying to stem the tide. Personally? I believe it's hopeless. There's too many centuries of hate, persecution and death. That itinerant rabbi didn't come to start a church and he certainly wasn't a "Christian." God/dess knows too many of those who claimed to speak for God were just talking to themselves. Cyril who drove the Jews out of Alexandria and became a saint anyway. Augustine who pretty much created Orignal Sin out of whole cloth. Martin Luther who saw the devil in his room. John Calvin who could have used some good drugs, but he still would have been a sociopathic psycho.

Let the whole, sorry mess crash and burn. Go back to the first couple of centuries. Before Constantine made the church legal and the persecuted (not nearly as persecuted as the stories would have us believe) became the persecutors. Rediscover the Celtic branch that the mainline churches, Catholic and Protestant, have tried to stamp out from the beginning. There's some hope there.

As for the fundies that keep pushing? Introduce them to the old Missouri Soup Bone. The greatest freedom we have in this country is THE FREEDOM TO BE LEFT THE HELL ALONE.  And yes, Jackie is in a pretty foul mood right now. I passed total disgust about twelve squares back.

I'm off to talk to the dogwood and pet a cat.

DIDN'T DROP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH

No I didn't drop off the face of the earth. I do not recommend coming down with sinus problems and bronchitis in July during the first heat wave. Not good. So not good. And then when I did come up for air the politics was, and is, even more incredible than usual. The head of one of the biggest Megas in Dallas says that Jesus would want to build a border fence.

A nitwit in Georgia claims that the refugee kids are carry the Ebola virus, among other diseases. Earth to twit, if those kids had Ebola...let's just say they'd have never made it to the border and there would be a trail of death in their wake. Never mind that this particular health disaster is strictly, so far, a West African disease.

Another idiot in Minnesota has a really original take on what causes AIDS. Totally wrong. Good Goddess have you been living on Pluto since the seventies or what?

The problems in the Middle East are all Obama's fault. Never mind that these civil wars have been in the cards since the Ottoman Empire fell and the Europeans drew lines on the maps without considering if the people inside the lines would be willing to get along or hated each others guts almost as much as they hated the colonial powers.

All this crap over the religious right to act like a perfect idiot whiskey tango foxtrot is going on. I'm waiting for the obvious conclusion. "I have the right to try and spread the Good Word anytime, anywhere to anyone and you can't stop me." Semi Quaker that I STILL am. I'm hanging on by my fraying fingernail. Try that with me and you'll be sitting on your ass. Charge me with assault and I'll dare a jury to convict me.

And those kids on the border? If they were blond, blue eyed Presbyterians we wouldn't be having these discussions, /Admit you're a bunch of freaking racists and get it over with.

MARTYR FOR THE RIGHT TO QUESTION

Hank Campbell’s entry on Girodano Bruno in the Five Things Tyson got Wrong definitely describes a kinder, gentler inquisition than I’ve read about in my history books. They just wanted him to say he was wrong, possibly with his fingers crossed behind his back and he could have gone on his way.

The Wickipedia article on Bruno does not specify which charges he was finally found guilty of, but the charges included:

• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers. 
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ and the incarnation.
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary. 
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and the Mass. 
• Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity. 
• Believing in the transmigration of the soul and that human souls might be reborn into lower animals. 
• Dealing in magics and divination

The sequence in Cosmos describes, in my opinion, a mystical experience. Bruno experienced a vision of multiple suns, many with their own worlds. He had the vision. He didn’t have the science to back it up. Neither did Copernicus, actually. And to be painfully honest it wasn’t until man stepped off this planet into space and could stand on the moon, or turn Voyager’s camera back towards the sun that we could really prove that we live in a heliocentric system. And there are still those who claim that we don’t.

It’s obvious that the author is a believer, that he took the time to identify one of Bruno’s heresies as Arianism and defended the inquisition however faintly makes me suspect he’s Catholic. Can't say one way or the other. There's precious little biographical information available about Mr. Campbell. That’s really neither here nor there. The Vatican has an official astronomer. He’s Jesuit with degrees up the pipe.

What really bothered me was the comments section. It’s four hundred years later and there are still individuals who believe that the church, any church, has the right to dictate belief and kill those who don’t bend the knee. To burn or ban their books because they don’t fall in line with scriptures written in the Bronze Age and cherry picked to fit an agenda. When I was twenty and handling my first copies of hominid skulls in Anthropology lab I never dreamed I’d be writing an entry like this. And I find no joy in it.

Incidentally, neither Copernicus nor Bruno fared very well at the hands of the Lutherans or the Calvinists. Tyson is quite specific. Giordano Bruno was not a scientist. He took information from several sources ranging from an ancient Roman and Copernicus and made some lucky guesses.

He was not a martyr for scientific beliefs. The condemnation scene makes it very clear that believing in multiple worlds was just one of the charges against him. But, he was a martyr for the right to do those things that make science possible. And that includes

Seeking independent confirmation of alleged facts.

Encouraging open debate about the issue and the evidence

Questioning authority and that includes Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Questioning everything, especially your own ideas.

Making sure every step in the argument is sound. If there’s a question, then go back and start over.

If the results are inconclusive the simplest explanation that fits the facts you have is probably the truth. Or as close as you can get at the time. Remember theories change as more date becomes available.

BALOONEY DETECTION KIT PART 4

Not really sure how far I'm going to go with these. It's been fun playing with these. It's also fun to see how many "pieces" of baloney your can find in one article. Say the description of a film that being put out by Santorum on how the US is turning in Nazi Germany. Or a  politician who believes that it would be ok and Biblical to stone gays to death. Not that he's actually advocating doing that. Oh no. However he is looking forward to getting elected so he "can apply Biblical principles to Oklahoma law. Oy.

Anyway onward. Here's the latest.

Fallacy:
Non sequitur


Type of Fallacy:
Non sequitur
Definition:
Latin for “it does not follow”

Example:
Plants and animals believed to be extinct have been found to have survived after all. One example is a fish known as a coelacanth.Kind of an ugly speciman isn't it. Notice the differences in the fins and tail from the fish we're familiar with. Scientists are reasonably certain that something looking this was probably the first critter to haul itself out of the water, on to the set sand or mud and go staggering off. There are still small fish that can spend some time out of water. They have very rudimentary lungs and are usually driven out of pools that are drying up in search of someplace wetter.

 It was assumed to have gone extinct sixty five million years ago. At least until the 1930’s when one was caught in a fisherman’s net. Westerner’s were amazed. Turns out that if anyone had known to ask the fisherman they would have said. Oh yeah, we know about them. Lousy eating but the dried skin makes great sandpaper.

Actually the living form is known as Latimeria, very similar to the lines that went extinct millions of years ago. This one may have branched off from the original line and found itself a nice little niche that nobody else was using and managed to survive.

So, since one representative of the coelacanths survived; a representative that may not have even existed sixty five million years ago, dinosaurs could have survived and coexisted with humans. It doesn’t follow that just because an ancient fish survived that dinosaurs did too.

Actually I prefer my baloney with cheese, mustard and relish on a couple of slices of good bread.