the myth of a benevolent military

There is a party line of thorough and successful brainwashing, done for the military, by the powers of this society. This is done to keep the military manned, and to benefit those that feed off the military budget, without public scrutiny to avoid complaint. More than one half of discretionary, government spending is for the military. People are taught to complain about welfare mothers, while corporate merchants of death receive untold, truly untold, millions. All of the rest of the world does not equal this country’s military spending.

The servicemen and their families are carefully taught the falsehood, that, they protect our liberties. They do not. People defending the Constitution against the powers of the domestic government, and those who the domestic government listens to and whose interest they promote, are those that defend our liberties.

One of the great lies is the word, ‘defense’. The word that it has very effectively camouflaged is, ‘WAR’. Early in our history, the Department of War had the naval forces separated from it, as the department of the Navy. In 1947 they were rejoined under the Department of Defense.

To-day, the United States has no competition as a military power. For some time, most american military bases are in foreign lands. In comparative language, they are outposts of the empire. What does the military do, when it is in action for the purpose it was trained and supplied for?

It is very true, that the serviceman serves his country, but the government directs his service. The government does not always do this well, honestly or even legitimately. This second iraqui war is testament to that.

One cannot lightly criticise or expose this. Any deviation from the mandatory line is reflexively met, quickly and sharply, with invective, rebuke and vitriolic and vile accusation. The masters of war have control. The false dictum — support our troops — meant and, really, only meant: support the war, or else shut up. It was announced before a shot was fired, before a bomb was dropped, but after the planning had begun and before the moment the invasion began, Who has this war defended? Who is more free? Certainly more iraquis have suffered and are suffering now, the United States is in worse condition in many, many ways. Qui bono? [“the war president”? Mars and Mammon? the Devil himself?]
_______________
noto bene: Listen to one of the cover versions, or Bob Dylan’s, Masters of War or With God on Our Side. Ask yourself, why with so many more media than over a generation ago, and with a much greater population, why has there been so little comparative music available and sung throughout the land?

The Citizen: Catholic and American

“A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility toward the common good.” — Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Concerning the bishops’ long statement on catholic teaching and political life issued last year: it primarily insists on people voting their consciences. It reflects on humanity and the human condition. Repeated, again and again are the phrases, “pursuit of the common good” and “protect the weak and vulnerable”.

It lists several, interconnected, intrinsically evil acts against human dignity. Acts that are a priori, inherently wrong by their essential nature (abortion, euthanasia, human cloning and destruction of embryos, genocide, torture, racism and the targeting of non combatants). All of these are important and our concern for justice and the good does not stop there.

We are called to discern the integrity of the speaker and separate his campaigning rhetoric and promises from his actions and his ability and willingness to accomplish his stated position of the moment. Measures that can partly achieve the good need to be weighted favorably against pleasant sounding words that will not be implemented in reality.

Certain ideals and programmes are to be striven for as a country: “consistent ethic of life”, “oppose torture, unjust war”, “pursuing progressive nuclear disarmament”, “constitutional protection of the unborn”, and many others that include acting as good stewards of the earth, being a brother nation in a multi-national world, advocating peace and preventing war, promoting decent working conditions and wages, adequate food, housing, health care and so forth.

These matters deserve your consideration when voting. Citizenship goes far beyond voting. Those who represent you, should know what you expect of them. They need to be prodded, told, directed and reminded constantly to do the right things; ALL the right things, not just one, especially one that does not come to fruition. Their terms of office are not periods where they can do whatever they please. Responsible government means that agents of government are responsible to the people. Read the Preamble and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Everyone has a God given mind and a voice, and in a supposedly free land can exercise them at will, and even in an unfree land at least once.

Mission Accomplished

On the 1st of May 2003, Chimpy was costumed in a naval flight onesie and some straps aboard an aircraft carrier within sight of the captured port city of San Diego de Alcalá , Alta California. A large banner imprinted with the words ‘Mission Accomplished’ were designed to be in the same picture frame with bushjr. It was a successfully staged propaganda coup.

Now five years and a day after this great accomplishment, the world can begin to see the scope of the truly spectacular achievements he has wrought on the nation and world. We are now in the second recession of his usurpation. The oilman who started a war with an oil bearing country is still proclaiming that the victory will be seen in six months. Gasoline is approaching $4 a gallon. The major oil producing countries are peckish and grumbling that oil is traded in weak dollars and are wanting another base currency.

“Wait a minute. What did you just say? You’re predicting $4 a gallon gas? … That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.” ― bushjr, 28 February 2008

The reputation of the United States outside of the United States is poor, at best. His anti-democratic party has done its damnedest to make all government in this country a subservient agent to its agenda. The poor are poorer, and every fox has been given his own hen houses to ravage. The damage is great. Bush can strut and crow, “mission accomplished ”.

May Day

Avanti popolo, alla riscossa
Bandiera rossa, bandiera rossa
Avanti popolo, alla riscossa
Bandiera rossa trionferà

Bandiera rossa trionferà
Bandiera rossa trionferà
Bandiera rossa trionferà
Evviva la pace e libertà *

Many working agreements have similar language to “eight hours shall be the normal working day.” This has not always been true. Many martyrs were made for advocating that idea. The welshman Robert Owen proposed the slogan, Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest, in 1817. It had became a chief demand of labor. Ship carpenters in Boston had it in 1842, the building trades in New York City in 1872, federal employees, theoretically, in 1868, an extremely weak law in 1867 was passed in Illinois in1867 to that purpose. There were Eight Hour Leagues across the country.

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, soon to be the A. F. of L., in 1884 pushed for an eight hour work day. A parade and strike would be organised for the 1st of May 1886 centered in Chicago, Illinois, but nationwide. The strike would last till that demand was met. The moneyed interests were alarmed. The newspapers were in league with the money. The police were also on board to crush such a thing. The establishment had their solidarity with all the power of the state and their own full coffers.

That first May Day parade in Chicago had 80,000. Others marched in Cincinnati, New York and elsewhere. At a demonstration and lockout at the McCormick Reaper†, on the 3rd, the police fired into the crowd and people were killed. The next day, the 4th of May, at Haymarket Square a bomb was thrown. A policeman was killed by the bomb. Other police were shot by police as they fired into the crowd. The crackdown by the state went full force in Chicago and nationwide. It ended with show trials and hangings. Worldwide protest was ignored. Men were hanged for rioting, who were, not present at the riot.

At an international labor conference, the Second Internationale in Paris, May Day was adopted as a day of commemoration. Beginning in 1890, the world recognised Labor Day as May 1. In the United States and Canada a day at the end of summer is marked, which began in New York City as an annual celebration in 1882. It is now not much more than a three day weekend.

We have the eight hour day, minimum wage and some other guarantees, because of Franklin Roosevelt and the heavily Democratic Congress of 1938 (Fair Labor Standards Act). It was one of the many programmes that came from the New Deal, that made life livable in this country; one of the things the moneyed interests and their lackeys in the Republican party have continually tried to strip from us. Unfortunately, we have members in union leadership, and in the ranks, that have given in to employers’ demands and requests that have weakened and betrayed that commitment. Too many men have died, had their heads cracked and bodies jailed so that men, women and children can have an eight hour day instead of a ten, eleven, twelve or sixteen. The May Day parade is a pure representation of the First Amendment.
____________________
* The original, though often and widely adapted, lyrics were written by Carlo Tuzzi, in 1908, as a workers’ anthem. It has been used as a marching song, particularly by anti-fascists, whom, sometimes, interposed a ribald insult to Mussolini.
†A strike for an eight hour day was held there 1 May 1867. McCormick also owned the Chicago Times paper. He was a very tight fisted robber baron, who cut wages and always wanted more gain. He had come to Chicago early, and became a partner with the city’s first mayor, Wm. Ogden, and his money. McCormick had the largest factory in town and it was the first to be rebuilt after the fire of ’71. The Chicago police, Pinkerton agency thugs, national guard and federal troops were engaged to control, kill and battle workers several times in the city in the 19th century. McCormick reaper became International Harvester in 1902.

noto bene: May Day had previously been a rustic celebration.

Rogation, Ascension and Saint Joseph

Rogare is latin for to ask, or to beg. Historically, the most ancient rogations were that of the consuls and tribunes to the people of Rome, concerning passage of a new law. The word, rogation, passed on to christian Rome as a particular solemn supplication or petition to the Lord.

Many things that began in the neighborhood of Rome passed to the greater church. The Major Rogation had been on 25 April, since 1969 it is no more. This initial rogation replaced a pagan supplication with a christian one. It fell in early spring, when it was wet and crops were starting. It was bidding for good growing, absent of disasters for agriculture and for food production.

The Minor Rogations are still with us, but rarely and not widely observed. They began in Gaul about the time of the ending of the roman empire in the west. These are the three days before Ascension. These this year are the: 28th, 29th and 30th of April. The Sunday before is, sometimes, called Rogation Sunday. By calendraic quirk, these five days of rogation are nearly consecutive.

These days were formally marked with processions, the blessing of fields and litanies (greek for rogations, from litanos, pleading) to the saints for their petitioning for us to the Lord. People fasted and vestments were violet. An ethos of responsible and successful stewardship of the land was engendered. To-day in the secular world, we have an Earth Day on 22 April and some places have an Arbor Day about the same time.*

Currently, this year around the world, there is a crisis over the availability of food. There is a wicked speculation that has driven the price for the grains that sustains people. People in countries where weekly incomes are in single digits of dollars, are paying in those dollars dollars per pound or kilogram for food. This speculation finds its opportunity through crop failures, climate disasters, war and horrid governance and corruption. People pay in wretched poverty and starvation. Rogations to God Almighty are sorely needed.

The Sunday Gospel has:

Amen, amen I say to you: if you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you.†

The Gospel for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday has:

And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.‡

These are the words of Jesus after His Resurrection and very near his Ascension unto heaven. The yearly cycle of the missal, the church year and the physical year weave well together. The joy and purpose of our existence and the hope of our future is reflected in our practise of living.

Ascension, Jesus rose to heaven and the Easter candle is no longer lit. The signs are metaphors for our salvation perspectives. Ascension is a feast on the fortieth day following the great feast of the Resurrection, Easter season is nearing a conclusion with Pentecost on the fiftieth day, when the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. There is a beauty of elegance in our lives and it proceeds during the year physical and liturgical.

Ascension is on Mayday, this year. We celebrate Saint Joseph the Worker on that day. Again, he is a looked over. Earlier the 19th of March, his other day, fell in Holy Week. Steady and still Joseph, short of speech and note. Jesus in his Resurrected Body returns to heaven on Ascension. There is a pious belief among a very few, that Joseph, who, so cared for the young Jesus may have been granted the grace to have joined, his virginal spouse and his foster Son, bodily in heaven also. The particulars of his death have not reached us through tradition or scripture.

We live in a convenience society in this country, so divorced from our past. We are not agrarians, whom so see the year intertwined with our lives. With these indulgences that cater to many, Ascension Thursday is transferred to the next Sunday and the Rogations, so fittingly proper, are not enjoined.
___________________
*The first Arbor day was 10 April 1874 in Nebraska, now it is on the 22nd, the birthday of its founder, Julius Sterling Morton. Morton was the party of the Democracy in Nebraska before Wm. J. Bryan.
†from John xvi. 23.
‡from Luke xi. 9.

Virtually invisible outrageous Republicans

I was wanting to write about Republicans who proclaim their opposition to abortion, yet oppose other parts of catholic social teaching as being ‘leftist’. These catholics are willing to be catholic when it costs them nothing, but when the capitalist-republican [read fascist] system is threatened they will, either, attack or dissemble. I had in mind: Congressman Thaddeus McCotter or Karl Rove’s pet catholic, Deal Hudson, him of the Rudy Giuliani commitment to marriage. Only very catholic democrats would be incensed over that pair of bullocks. But, this past week, there are two Republicans that even Republicans might find outrageous:

#1. The returning challenger for Indiana's 2nd congressional district, Tony Zirkle, who got 30% of the 2006 primary vote. Zirkle addressed a Nazi social gathering, an American National Socialist Workers Party dinner for the 119th anniversary of Hitler’s birth. Some people would think this a democrat’s attempt at an April fool joke, but no — this, indeed, did happen. Of course, many of us think it is a natural.

#2. The newly appointed Republican state representative, Douglas Bruce, of Colorado kicked a newspaper photographer, while being sworn in. He was the first member ever censured in Colorado. Monday, the 21st, during debate about migrant braceros, he said, “We don't need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in the state of Colorado.” Now, this is the state Tancredo represents, who also criticised the pope, during his visit in America, over immigration. Kathleen Curry, who was temporarily exercising the Speaker of the House duty, cut Bruce off from continuing after the ‘illiterate peasant’ remark, but she is a Democrat. The man has at least two career anecdotes in his first three months.

When one hears of such antics, he immediately is simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by these human trainwrecks, either by the blatant banality or the audacity of aggravating stupidity. These two do not have a national presence, but they have caught the interest of the teletype wires for — Oh, looky at what this idiot has done to-day! These two are fully representative of a very significant portion of the Republican party and their voters. The difference between them and bushjr’s circle is that they lack …

The last word with Shakespeare

Tempest Epilogue―Prospero’s Prayer
Spoken by Prospero (the actor – Will Shakespeare’s last appearance, last word)

Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon’d the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Loreena McKennit edits this and sings it with a haunting and lovely tune.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,

[Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;] skipped

But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,

[Which was to please] twice Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Purgatory, a concept that bothered and continues to bother protestants, the soul’s or humanity’s eschatological dilemma must be alluded in this. After this, Shakespeare retired to exile in Stratford, away from London. A fair question is why was this his last statement? He appears on stage alone, the play is ended. There is a recurring metaphor for Shakespeare that the actor on the stage is all men in their own lives. We all must recognize that the word ‘indulgence’ was a politically/religiously loaded term, c.1612, after the Age of Faith and before the Age of Enlightenment. Here the actor is concerned for the fate of his soul and he begs for intercessory prayer, if not that, what else could it refer to? He is asking for mercy of Mercy, God in the person of Jesus. The divine arbiter of justice, who grants pardon and who had been pierced and is still being pierced.

George Abbot was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, he had strong ‘puritan’ leanings and disapproved of both theatre and catholicks. James I was no friend to catholics, and this was after the Guy Fawkes hysteria. Shakespeare was not free to be a publick figure, yet he needed to speak, when it was perilous to do so. He spoke on multiple layers and not everyone receives every reference. Then as to-day, non-catholics are tone deaf to catholic words and misunderstand catholic concepts.

The english were still using the Julian calendar. William Shakespeare died on Saint George’s Day (and may have been born on that patronal feast of the english), 23 April 1616 (O.S.) (3 May N.S.). His public life was forced to end with this play, and though, not truly an elderly man, he had less than a handful of years left. His mind was considering the last years and the last four things. I believe, he says this in his last speech. He was a catholic. People knew he died as a ‘papist’. The sentiments of this last word fit catholic belief, theology and devotion.

Recently (1993), the Sunday immediately after the Resurrection has been named for the Divine Mercy*. The icon of this has two streams of light, red and white, emanating from the heart of Jesus. Our Lord grants mercy for our sins, and pardons our faults.

An older devotion is that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It became fixed in the 17th century, but had existed for centuries before. The Sacred Heart is pierced by a crown of thorns and His heart bleeds for us.

Jesus at the end of His life is in torment, yet He prays for us, His fellow men. He asks for their forgiveness. He hears the confession of the penitent thief and promises him paradise. The last of the Seven Words of Jesus on the cross is said to his Father, Our Father:

et clamans voce magna Jesus ait Pater in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum et hæc dicens exspiravit

And Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And saying this, he gave up the ghost.― Luke xxiii. 46.

_______________________
*In the vision granted to Saint Faustina *1905,†1938, Jesus says to her,

“I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy.”

Of course, this is centuries after Shakespeare, but it is of the same spirit and spirituality. Catholicism has the same flavor in the first century as the twenty first.