"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. "
I ran in to this quote today and was first thinking it came from Desmond Tutu or some other non-violence philanthropist before I learned it came from Dwight D. Eisenhower (R), a five-star Army general and the 34th president of the U.S from 1953-1961.
Just thinking... the GOP has gone so far right as I said in yesterday's blog. You would never in a million years hear a quote like that from today's republicans.
Yesterday I had a discussion with someone about bringing extra snacks with the kids to school to the kids that don't bring any and that person said that it was not our responsibility but the parents of that child.
I agreed, but what if the kid don't have good caring parents?
Now that person might not be one of the people out there with pro-life bumper stickers on her car, I don't know, but I know the person is a "value voter".
And what seemed so absolute, so fundamental, to be pro-life, all of a sudden disappeared as soon as that fertilized egg became a real baby, or later a child. A woman that becomes pregnant and not want a baby, or don't feel capable of taking care of a child, is called a murderer for not wanting to go forward with the pregnancy.
Don't take me wrong, I hate abortions, and want to fight to reduce the numbers to the absolute minimum, but maybe one of those women is the mom of the kid that never bring a warm coat to school, that never have money for popcorn on Fridays, that don't bring snacks to school.
And now the responsibility isn't that person's or mine, but the mom's?
Most pro-life people tend to be republican, most tend to support the war (seem impossible to be pro-life and pro-war at the same time, but somehow they make it work), some tend to be NRA members (do pro-life people think it's OK to blow the head off of someone steeling their car?), and most tend to go to church. And even though they sit in the pew every Sunday some seem to have become totally immune to the Sermon on the Mount
What I'm trying to teach my kids by letting them bring extra snacks to school and give out to their friends if they forgot to bring, or just didn't have any, is that it's a good feeling to give, it is the right thing to do, and guess what? It doesn't involve any religious doctrines.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
today, tomorrow, yesterday?
I follow a Swedish blog about the GLBT people and their struggles in Sweden. It's a really good written blog and the girl writing it is very articulate, smart and also, maybe my favorite part, has a quick and sometimes quite sarcastic mouth.(http://libreb.blogspot.com/)
Here in the U.S. the people setting the standards are the "Christians" who have the "God given right" to tell the rest of us how we're supposed to live, love, vote, and behave. Here it seem impossible to get rid of the " Don't ask, Don't tell". Here teens commit suicide because they can't find acceptance for who they are. With all that said, well, it's easy to see that Sweden is paradise compared to here for all GLBT friends!
Of course I'm not saying that Sweden is a perfect paradise when it comes to gay rights, they need to work on a lot of things, but compared to us in the U.S. they are on a totally different level and 100's of years ahead of us.
We just finished off an election season, where the tea party had a huge success in both the house and in local races all across the nation. They claim they want to take our country back, and I'm wondering how far back exactly? To before the civil rights movement? To before blacks and women got the rights to vote? To before we found out the world wasn't flat?
The further to the right people are politically the more back striving they seem to be.
It amazes me, views I think should be put in a museum showing off how weird it used to be, how uninformed people used to be back in the days of when we started standing on two feet instead of four, those views are the same views the tea party ran on and gained huge success on.
The really pity here is that the progressive and left are caving in. While the right is moving further and further to the right the rest of the field is moving with them.
What used to be moderate republican views are now left wing views. Ronald Reagan that was such a "righty", would in today's republican party probably find himself out on the very edge toward the left.
Can't remember his name, but the last judge leaving the supreme court had been on the bench for many, many years and when he was sworn in he was a republican, and without changing his views during the years he was now considered a left wing guy.
Keeping up with the right going further and further right and frankly also striving further and further backwards makes me fear that maybe today was as far as we will get and maybe from here on we might just be going towards the past instead of facing the future.
Scary, but quite possible...
Here in the U.S. the people setting the standards are the "Christians" who have the "God given right" to tell the rest of us how we're supposed to live, love, vote, and behave. Here it seem impossible to get rid of the " Don't ask, Don't tell". Here teens commit suicide because they can't find acceptance for who they are. With all that said, well, it's easy to see that Sweden is paradise compared to here for all GLBT friends!
Of course I'm not saying that Sweden is a perfect paradise when it comes to gay rights, they need to work on a lot of things, but compared to us in the U.S. they are on a totally different level and 100's of years ahead of us.
We just finished off an election season, where the tea party had a huge success in both the house and in local races all across the nation. They claim they want to take our country back, and I'm wondering how far back exactly? To before the civil rights movement? To before blacks and women got the rights to vote? To before we found out the world wasn't flat?
The further to the right people are politically the more back striving they seem to be.
It amazes me, views I think should be put in a museum showing off how weird it used to be, how uninformed people used to be back in the days of when we started standing on two feet instead of four, those views are the same views the tea party ran on and gained huge success on.
The really pity here is that the progressive and left are caving in. While the right is moving further and further to the right the rest of the field is moving with them.
What used to be moderate republican views are now left wing views. Ronald Reagan that was such a "righty", would in today's republican party probably find himself out on the very edge toward the left.
Can't remember his name, but the last judge leaving the supreme court had been on the bench for many, many years and when he was sworn in he was a republican, and without changing his views during the years he was now considered a left wing guy.
Keeping up with the right going further and further right and frankly also striving further and further backwards makes me fear that maybe today was as far as we will get and maybe from here on we might just be going towards the past instead of facing the future.
Scary, but quite possible...
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