LETTERS to the EDITOR

More Than One Issue Matters

In your 2/1/17 issue, James A. Haught raises a very good question in “White Evangelicals are Fading, Powerful, Baffling”: Why would they vote for a candidate like Donald Trump?,” who seems to be the epitome of everything they couldn’t support.

Apparently, they are willing to forgive an awfully lot when it suits them. Their relentless attempts to overturn Rowe v. Wade seems to be one big issue that they find to be the most important “evil,” for one thing. And if a candidate is against that, they will get their vote. Another thing they want is gun rights. So odd that they want to protect every fertilized egg with death for the mother, abortionist and anyone else who keeps it from coming to birth, but guns, which can only maim and/or kill human life, should be free to everyone who wants one. And, once babies get here, they don’t want any breaks for mothers, families or communities to help raise those children. That should be the mother’s complete responsibility (or father’s, too, if he should want to contribute). Or so it seems.

The New Testament can be read by anyone, but it’s intended audience is to those who want to believe what it said. I see nothing in there about fetuses. But there is a lot about how believers should live and what they should believe. Forgiveness is a large part of the Christian faith. So is peace, which implies non-violence. Freedom is the goal.

If people are deserting the church, there must be reasons for it. Could it have become too political in its concerns? Didn’t Christ himself have issues with the religious/political leaders of the day? Wouldn’t that be a worthwhile avenue to explore? There is a lot about the rich and the poor, too, that bears attention.

Everyone should be thinking about these things, for the good of everyone. Even if abortion were declared illegal (again) and guns should be everywhere always, and Republicans were the only party, it should still not be Paradise on Earth. (Some think it would actually even be the opposite!) So perhaps our country could be even better with concerns for much more than the “single issue voters” demand as the test for a candidate’s “suitability” for office.

Cheryl Lovely
Presque Island, Maine

Evangelical Politics

Here is the deal about voting. Only 60% of eligible Americans are even registered. Of that, a mere half bother to vote, even in the 2016 election which offered the worst case scenario I can remember, and I am older than you.

Thus, a mere 15% can decide who will rule over you and in what manner.

When the Graham group puts out their “Decisions” magazine saying it is Trump or Satan and all the other raving media preachers do the same, the Pentecostals are at the polls giving the devil his due. (That publication went out to everyone stupid enough to contribute to the shoebox campaign.)

Don’t forget Fox and CNN that could not quit saying Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump! Trump called Hilary The Devil on the doofus media referred to as television.

I consider CNN to be almost as much to blame as Fox.

A decade old book, Deer Hunting with Jesus, explains better why the poor and downtrodden vote for Republicans than any television pundits l have ever heard. Or, TPP writers also ...

We know what Trump apparently is, but most of the Jesus lovers’ Old Testament heroes were murdering, stealing perverts, so Trump is okay with them ... as long as he is not gay.

I am also extraordinarily weary of hearing the nones are the largest segment of America. This is not unlike listening to Tom Flynn (executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism) babbling. Regardless of the size of the demographic, the nones are unorganized and incapable of countering the unified evangelical voting bloc.

Don’t tell me about registering the unregistered, which is probably an even more stupid demographic than the registered voters!

Tight organization of the evangelical component has and will continue to win elections, both local and national. They will not stop until we are all slaves to Jesus ... their Jesus, not yours.

On Nov. 8, 2016, America was on the tipping point between democracy and an autocratic theocracy.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Charles A. Wagner
Peru, Ind.

Respectful Free Speech

No one — not even St. Augustine, despite his encyclopedic knowledge of both Jewish and Christian Scriptures, could find guidance pertaining to the topic of abortion within the pages of the Bible.

This is what that revered church father wrote in his Epistle 190.5.:

“I have not been able to discover in the accepted books of Scripture anything at all certain about the origin of the soul.”

We know of course that the religious consider “soul” and “life” to be the same.

Thus, I take issue with Father Donnell Kirchner [“Practicing Respectful Free Speech” (2/15/17 TPP)] who sees American Christians struggling with the dilemma of condemning radical Muslins who eliminate nonbelievers … but live in a nation that legalizes the killing of unborn children.

Oh … please! Abortion and murder are not the same! Whereas radical Muslims glorify themselves when they kill the living, the Bible mentions abortion only one time (Exodus 21:22-25) — but not as a homicide.

Nevertheless, I agree with Father Kirchner’s statement that “No one can take away your belief, but neither can your belief overcome another’s disregard of the same.”

In that respect, the Catholic Church should not deny access to lawfully mandated birth control for women who work in its hospitals and schools — many of whom, I’m sure, disregard Catholic beliefs.

David Quintero
Monrovia, Calif.

Run From Bigots, Haters and Hypocrites

I don’t want to talk to a bigot, or a hater, or a hypocrite because it’s a true waste of time. They will try to explain their BS, and then try to recruit you, because they are right and you are wrong.

When they play the God card, “Run Forrest, run.” When they quote from Fox News, run faster. When you ask a very good question, don’t be surprised if they get angry, or think that you’re somehow insulting them, personally. This has been my experience when talking to Trumped supporters.

Open your eyes to the damage done, and it’s only been a short time. Imagine four years from now, if you can. Each morning I wake up wondering what the fool has done or “Tweeted.” Who has he needlessly angered with his rants? Today, with the Barnum & Bailey circus closing, Trumped truly is the greatest show on earth.

Gary R. Baumdraher
Maple City, Mich.

GOP Environmental Death Spiral

One has to be in a state of illusion if they don’t recognize with alarm that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are intent on destroying the planet’s eco-system. This is neither hyperbole nor hysteria. Consider the facts:

1. Trump has appointed Scott Pruitt as Administrator for the EPA. Pruitt’s legacy includes absolute contempt for the environmental regulation and the EPA. Trump’s EPA transition chair — rabid climate change denier Myron Ebell has vowed to cut the agency’s workforce by two thirds-particularly scientists who “Believe the global warming alarmist agenda.”

2. Trump himself considers climate change a hoax invented and engineered by the Chinese.

3. The Republican Party today controls the majority of every major branch of government in this, the most powerful nation in human history. Without exception, every Republican official denies the existence of climate change, with minor deviation of a brave few Republicans who acknowledge the possibility of climate change but are steadfast in their belief that we should do nothing about it. This incredible and horrifying denial by the most powerful political party on the planet makes the Republicans without exception the most dangerous political party in human history. They are steadfast and united in denial of a reality that threatens within an ever shortening time frame human survival. They have become and devolved into a craven sect comparable to the Flat Earth Society, with the tragic caveat that their heartfelt denial threatens and will ultimately wreak havoc on planet earth. And this is happening right before our eyes.

If this kind of murderous and suicidal environmental death spiral is Trump and the Republicans idea of making America “Great” again — I am loathe to imagine what they have in mind for an encore.

Jim Sawyer
Edmonds, Wash.

The Test

So, you want to test for Virtue before you crack the door / For strangers seeking freedom from privation and from war?

Claim your master plan would sort out the Good stock from the Spoilt,

And sift the Bright and Pious Patriot from the Dark Unholy Lout?

Well, this Test is my rejoinder to The Donald and his friends:

Let’s fill some stadium bleachers and bring back the Lion’s Den.

Let some Biblical Solutions entertain the “Righteous” throng.

(That might place our Armchair Soldiers right where they belong.)

What a cash flow this could cultivate for free trade companies,

As commercial rates explode for Super Lion’s Bowl TV!

Hawk a T-shirt, and a ball cap, coloring books with neat designs

(Made to pacify those women apt to stray outside the lines!)

Let us start with Mega Reverends: give those boys a rousing cheer

As they finally meet something they can’t con with Rapture Fear.

March ‘em out to take their chances —- each misogynistic fop.

(It might lend a whole new meaning to a term like pussy cop.)

Oh, the fun to watch the hucksters of Intelligent Design

And those personhood promoters meet a cat whose been refined

(Not by prophet visitations or guardian angel lies,

But) by its evolution of the instinct to survive.

They can bathe in eau de checkbook. Let ‘em speed-dial Super PACs.

(Ah! Those tactics work with Congress, but they don’t impress a cat.)

Yes, I know it’s schadenfreudic, but I just can’t shake this dream

Of that First-String Trumpster lineup versus Hungry Feline Team.

Sandra B. Sheldon
Rochester, N.Y.

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2017


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