Thursday, January 30, 2014

Is Snyder Resurrecting Slavery In Detroit?


I am rarely disappointed by the audacity of Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, and today is no different.  Rick, during a time of national immigration issues, appeals to the federal government. His desire is to bring 50,000 highly skilled immigrants from India and other countries. His goal is to populate the bankrupt city of Detroit. His plan calls for 5000 the first year, 10,000 for the next three years, and 15,000 the fifth and final year. He wants their freedom restricted at the beginning, forcing them, by the conditions of their visas, to work and live within Detroit city limits. Is Snyder’s goal so different than the L. Brooks Patterson comment about fencing in the Indians, or was L. Brooks talking about the Snyder intent? Was it a radical slip, with intension, or a clear insight as to what was about to happen? The biggest question in my mind is this; is this so different than herding the African slaves? Isn’t it the same concept with a different agenda? I find it even more interesting that none of this was broadcast in local media. I had to search to find a credible source, which I did find in Reuters. Imagine that.
Considering these visas are only supposed to be granted to the highly skilled people of other nations, are they prepared to move to a severely poverty stricken area with high crime and low education standards? Highly skilled workers will not want to live and work in an urban area that has been left to decay by the politicians that, term after term, promise to fix.

Snyder is comparing this adventure to the visas granted to physicians invited to come to service our high poverty areas.  We outsource our medical care for the under served in the form of American visas? Amazingly pathetic.

Now, to further the burden of the American taxpayers, the highly skilled workers will be granted these visas without the promise of employment. Where are these high skilled automotive, information technologists, healthcare, and life sciences educated people, going to work? Considering many won’t be able to speak our language, and if they can it’s poorly articulated, that doesn’t make for top notch employment, unless, they are going to be hired by capitalists that will rape them of their knowledge for a penance of what they are worth. Again, we’re back to the slaves that should be grateful to be here and to have a job, but if that fails, we’ll throw them a hundred dollars a month (after the cuts to the SNAP program that was passed with the new farm bill) for food and try to starve them back to their homeland.
Once again, I’m ashamed to be an American. We let our urban areas fall to the ground. Every politician played up the waterfront property and danced to the corporate swish of green paper being thrown at them. They ignored the neighborhoods, blamed the people, then not only accepted, but expected the urbanites to live in poverty.  No Mayor or Governor made drastic moves to clear the abandoned homes or the garbage ridden lots used for cover to drug deals, rapes, and murders. Once the private sector was secure, through planned and elaborate bankruptcy schemes, the property is leased to high bidders who will make personal profit. Now, they need to ship in the slaves. Will they promise them riches while they lock their freedom into the city limits of the most dangerous American city in the United States, without a choice?

As Rick said: "Where else in the U.S. could you find a house or a lot for the prices you're going to find here? It's a good deal….”
If it’s such a good deal, Mr. Snyder, why don’t you, Dave, and Chuck get together and purchase a neighborhood or two. Why don’t you reconstruct the filth into a desirable area, and then sell it back to the out of work skilled tradesmen in America at an affordable rate?  

Better yet, why don’t you move your family to a downtown Detroit neighborhood, educate them in the Detroit Public School system, after all, it should be good enough since you appointed Kevin Orr as an Emergency Financial Manager, right? Let your children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews play in the yard and walk the streets like normal children, and every night tell yourself how lucky you are to be there, even  better still, do it on minimum wage, without health insurance, and on Food Stamps. Put your money and your pseudo intelligence where your mouth is, and live first as you intend to cast someone else into living…after all, your words: It’s a good deal.
I would vote for a homeless, begging, addicted, street person before I would ever cast a vote for you, Rick. You are as bankrupt morally as Detroit is financially.

Till the next time, Pam

Sunday, January 26, 2014

AMERICA WAS NOT FOUNDED ON CHRISTIANITY


 

Susanne Atamus, a Chicago congressional runner, opened her mouth and let the condemnation of God effervesce as if she had the power to point fingers in judgment. Her words condemned the gay community and those who have had abortions. Her claim: Tornados, autism, and dementia are punishment from The Almighty for the gay rights movement and abortions. She continued: "God is angry. We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions. Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it's in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God." Discussing this issue with three different friends, I was shocked by their defense of the Atamus claims. The three call themselves Independents, but always vote Republican.  I tried to explain the separation of church and state was in place to prevent anyone from using the dogma of their personal religion to persecute another by creating laws secular to suit their personal beliefs. I heard responses that told me differently, one said she hated Muslims, because they killed people for being Christian. She also stated that in today’s world, Christians were the ones being killed and persecuted. All three, at the end of the conversation, said: “This country was founded on Christianity!”

This is not true. Let’s do some history.

America, unlike the Muslim countries, does not have a national religion. The sister country to the United States, England, killed, maimed, and slaughtered those who refused to follow the changing dogmas.

In 1604, King James VI ordered the Geneva bible, which he despised, to be retranslated. This bible was to follow original text, but to omit anything he thought would create a revolutionary thought. The translation mandate was clear and detailed by the King.  He demanded this new translation to reinforce a clear-cut royal political agenda, to be done by elite scholarly committees, reviewed by a self-serving bureaucracy, with ultimate approval reserved to an absolutist monarch. Hence, the birth of the King James Version of God’s words and the record of Jesus Christ was created.  

Globally there were others fleeing their countries in the name of God, for fear of persecution by their leaders. The French pilgrims fled France in the name of religious freedom.  In 1564, the French established a Huguenot (Protestant) colony at Fort Caroline, (near Jacksonville, Florida.)

In 1565, Commander Pedro Menendez de Avile, who had established a base at St. Augustine, slaughtered the French colony. In a letter to Spanish King Philip II he said he: “…hanged all those we had found in Fort Caroline because they were scattering the odious Lutheran doctrine in these Provinces.”  Soon after, a shipwrecked French fleet washed up on the beaches of Florida and they, too, were slain by de Avile. This time they were killed by sword. They died next to a river the Spanish called Matanzas (“slaughters.”)  

The Lutheran French, fleeing religious persecution, were slaughtered because they didn’t share a specific dogma with the Catholic de Avile. This was the first religious war on American soil.

In 1620, the Mayflower landed.  There were 102 passengers. Not all were Pilgrims/Separatists, some were Anglicans, some were Puritans, and some didn’t have any religious affiliation at all. The Separatists were fleeing religious persecution. They were escaping the Church of England, the national religion of England. Most Separatists carried their Geneva bible, while other’s carried their King James Version. Before long, even though seeking religious freedom in a new land, there was fighting, stealing, and bloodshed. Again, this violence was due to unshared dogmas of religion. They even viewed the Indians, who helped them learn survival techniques, as heathens.

Because of the global, religion based, empowerment and persecution, the Enlightenment was born. The world’s scientists and teachers questioned the dogma of religion. Through scientific analysis they highly doubted many religious laws. When Galileo discovered the earth moved around a still sun, his findings were outlawed and hidden. The bible says differently, it says the earth is stationary and the sun moves around the earth. Science, though needed to develop, was seen as anti-God. Soon the group of the intelligent scholars, after seeing religion creating violence on many levels, created the Enlightenment. These were highly intelligent individuals that wanted to move past the dogma of religion so, as in the word of Jesus, people could live together and form a free society in the new land of America.

This is where the founding fathers kick into play. They had lived the immigration in flee of religious persecution and they watched each group persecute each other solely based on the differences of religion. It is because of the actions of the Anglicans, the Separatists, and the Puritans that it soon became obvious that America could have no national religion. It was imperative to the founding fathers that America had to be protected from all they have watched evolve in the name of God. The only way to do this was to grant those the freedom to choose their personal beliefs, no matter what their choice.

Many of the founding fathers were from the Enlightenment. They believed God created the earth and its people, then left. They didn’t believe God loomed over our lives and watched every wrong we did. They believed good works was superior to paying penance to an unseen God, calling it a fallacy, at times.

Below are Quotes from some of the most famous founders of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

John Adams in a letter to John Taylor: “The priesthood has, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.  And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY?  The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded.  But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."

Thomas Jefferson:

"They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live."

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature.  They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication."

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever."     

George Washington in a letter to Edward Newenham, 1792:

"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.  Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated.  I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."

Benjamin Franklin:

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

Thomas Paine:

"Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."

James Madison:

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation.  During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial.  What have been its fruits?  More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."    - Ibid, 1785

Those were statements for the founders. Where is the dependence on Christianity of the nation?

The 1796 Treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams. 

This was not a treaty signed to trick the Muslims or lead them falsely. These two particular founding fathers knew that Christianity didn’t play any role in the founding of the United States of America. After all, they were founding fathers.

The Pledge of Allegiance, which was first published in 1892 in The Youths Companion, didn’t contain the words “under God.” It wasn’t until Eisenhower, in 1954, that the words were added, against the will of Francis Bellamy’s, the author’s daughter’s wishes. Again, the American Government was out of line by changing the words, and the meaning, of another’s works, to benefit his anti-communist fears.
“In God we trust” didn’t appear until Congress passed it on April 23, 1863, almost 100 years after the signing of the Constitution. It was first suggested by a minister to the Secretary of State. His stance was he wanted protection from God during the fears of the civil war. The first time it was printed was on a two cent coin.

The 84th Congress passed a joint resolution making the motto “In God We Trust” the national motto. President Eisenhower signed it into law on July 30, 1956. It was added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966, however, because constitutionally there is not a national religion this should have never been signed, by Congress or by President Eisenhower, but the looming fear of Communism was in full swing and God was manipulated to the people. In a communist world there is no room for Christianity.

In America, our founders found it necessary, due to the fierce, violent, and persecuting demeanors of those that label themselves the followers of God, the Christians, that the protections were written.  Freedom of Religion was written to protect our country from the affliction of heathenistic judgment by those who feel they hold the challis. How dare any American, much less one that is running for a political office, use God and speak on the punishments God is bestowing upon people.

Christians, with their long history, have verbally and physically slayed, beheaded, hanged, or condemned those that don’t believe as they do. They pull out their King James Version, which was censored by King James himself, to cast stones.  A real believer in Christ could not comment or judge the life of a homosexual, nor could they comment or judge those that have abortions. Frankly, it isn’t any of your business. Shouldn’t you be focused on loving your neighbor instead of looking for political stones to throw at people that don’t concern you? You can’t believe only part of what you say. How can you worship Jesus, but use Leviticus to propagate hatred towards others?  Leviticus is outdated by the blood of Jesus. If you choose to resurrect the Old Testament, you better start leading your children to the gates and start throwing the stones until death, because that was what we were supposed to do with children talked back.  Jesus didn’t speak on any sexual issues. You can’t live in the forgiveness of the blood of Jesus and shout out to the world “Jesus is my Lord and Savior” if you are going to desecrate his meaning by going back to Leviticus to support your hatred and judgment toward what you either don’t like, or don’t understand. I think when the hands of eternal justice come; it will swipe away Susanne Atanus and all of those that think they have to right to pass judgment. That’s Gods place, not ours. Quit persecuting, and if you feel you have to, do it in front of a mirror, that’s where it will do the most good.

Till the next time.

Pam