Whitaker's Current Articles April 10, 2004
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April 10, 2004 --
Conservative Blasphemy
April 10, 2004 --
Israel is the Beam in America's Eye
April 10, 2004 --Iraq
and Vietnam: A Man With a Memory Takes a Look
April 10, 2004 --
Iraq and Vietnam: Moderation in Action
Fun Quote:
1) Jews are world famous as sharp businessmen. Even
anti-Semites will grant them that.
2) The best-selling book in human history is the Bible.
3) Why didn't they copyright it?
Buy Bob's Book "Why Johnny Can't Think" from Amazon here!
Conservative Blasphemy
A WOL reader wrote me that the rise of
religious bigotry frightened her. The two articles below
were my reply to her.
Dear X,
Your question
helps me formulate my writing. A lot of my articles come from
questions like yours.
I would write you
back in detail anyway. Readers who actually write me are very
important to me. That's the whole point of WOL.
Speaking of
religion, let me start with my own. What no preacher mentions is
that many of Jesus' words that we hear the most about, were exactly
what He was NOT talking about.
For example, we all
hear "The poor we have always with us." But that was precisely
the point Jesus was NOT making. He went on to say that what He was
on earth about was not the perpetual problem of the poor, but the
fact that Christ Himself was right there in front of the people trying to show them the path to salvation:
"I am the way, the
truth, and the light. No man goes to the Father but by me."
He was talking to
Jews. He told them to their faces that their Jewish Law would not
save them any more than pagan worship would.
But fashionable
preachers use "The poor we have always with us" to show that Jesus
was really on earth as a political revolutionary.
A United Methodist
preacher wrote me that Jesus died on the Cross so there
would be no caste system on earth.
No way.
Jesus never even
mentioned slavery, which lay at the base of his society. The Book
of Titus (the shortest book in the Bible) says if you are a master
be a good master, if you are a slave, be a good slave.
Sean Hannity says
that Jesus died on the Cross for interracial dating.
The wedding Jesus
blessed, the marriage at Cana, was rigidly limited by Jewish Law to
the marriage of two Jews ONLY. This violated what Hannity says
Jesus was all about.
Jesus did not
mention the restriction on the marriage at Cana. Why should He?
This had nothing to do with His mission.
So Hannity commits
good old fashioned blasphemy without the slightest hint of
a conscience. After all, he is being Politically Correct, so who cares
about Jesus?
Israel is the Beam in America's Eye
Bear with me. I'll get to your point in
a minute.
Conservative preachers endlessly quote Jesus as saying that he was
here on earth to fulfill the Jewish Law, not to destroy it: "Not a jot or tittle." From there, preachers go on to prove Jesus was here to
save the State of Israel. Actually Jesus went ahead and knocked
down the whole basis of the Jewish Law, the Ten Commandments
themselves, by reducing them to "Love God" and The Golden Rule.
He worked on the Sabbath, and made it clear that was an example.
Jesus's point was
that He was the fulfillment of ALL moral laws. This included the
huge monotheistic religion of the Persians, of which the Magi were
priests.
Jesus said, "My
kingdom is not of this earth."
But on this earth
people use Jesus for power and to push any issue they happen to
like. This is straight, good old fashioned blasphemy. Jerry
Falwell uses Christ to back Israel, and Arabs use their religion
for the other side.
You are right, this
is hideously dangerous. A third of Germany's entire population
was wiped out in the Thirty Years' War between Protestants and
Catholics. But the problem does not start with Arabs. It
starts here. We gave Arab land to a group of people who are
largely the descendants of CONVERTS to the religion of Judaism.
There are more
genes of the actual old Jewish population of Palestine in the
Palestinian Arabs than in the Jews to whom we gave the Palestinian
homeland.
Now we are
screaming about THEIR religious bigotry.
Jesus said that
before we point out the mote in someone else's eye we should
take care of the beam in our own.
Once again, you are
right. Western history teaches us that there is nothing more
dangerous than using religion for political purposes. That is
what we did. That is what we are doing.
Iraq and Vietnam: A Man With a Memory
Takes a Look
"With
Washington's tacit approval, on November 1, 1963, Diem (the
President of South Vietnam) and his
brother were captured and later killed. Three weeks later,
President Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas."
by Professor Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College:
http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/history/
There is no
such thing as "tacit approval" of cold-blooded murder. This is
especially true of the Chief Executive of the United States, whose
job is to enforce the laws. If you know a murder is
about to be committed and you condone it, you are a murderer.
So President
Kennedy ordered the assassination of the Chief Executive of South
Vietnam exactly three weeks before he himself was assassinated.
This sounds
like some kind of expose of a conspiracy. It's not. It is a
matter of public record.
The reason
this sounds like the exposure of a conspiracy is because history
that liberals and respectable conservatives agree to forget is
usually wildly outrageous. That's why they agree to forget it.
Diem, not to
mince words, was dictator of South Vietnam. In 1963 he was
defeating the Communists with relatively little American help.
But a bunch of Buddhists didn't like him and they burned
themselves alive in the streets in protest. This upset the New
York Times, which had front page pictures of the burning monks.
To a Man With
A Memory, the situation in Iraq is a replay of Vietnam in 1963.
Diem was successfully resisting the Communists, but liberals
didn't approve of him.
In 1963, as in
Iraq
today, it was just a matter of time before we could pull out of
the South Vietnam ruled by Diem.
Then the
liberals decided Diem was a bad man and we killed him. You know
the rest.
Vietnam and Iraq: Moderation in Action
The details
in
Iraq
are different, but the situation is the same. Bush wants to
use force, and liberals say we are not being sweeties, so
the Administration is "plotting a middle course."
I think the
Iraq War was fought for Israel. But that has nothing to do with
my attitude once American troops are actually there. Once our
troops are there, I have the same attitude I had about Vietnam:
Fight it or get the hell out.
But the
bureaucrats in uniform (and anybody who gets promoted to general
is just one more bureaucrat) look straight into the camera and
repeat the old Vietnam slogan, "We must win the hearts and minds
of the people."
This is the
fatal disease we call "moderation." We have the right, we have
the left, and so we take the "middle course" between them. So
we have troops in Iraq, but we demand that they obey all the
rules liberals worry about.
The United
States has decided to occupy Iraq. Americans in uniform are
there to enforce that occupation.
Do it or
get the hell out.
In the
early 1960s, when there were huge riots in American cities,
Popular Opinion kept asking, "What can we do if mobs take over a
major city?"
They
finally asked me that. I replied, "Cut off the water."
They were
stunned. My obvious solution did not fit into the Serious
Discussion of an Intractable Problem that I was supposed to be
engaged in.
If we have
troops in Iraq,
my concern is our troops. Screw Iraqi hearts and minds.
If a city is
making trouble for the occupation, cut off their water. Then
anyone who comes out of the city is picked up and questioned
before they are let out.
Or get the
hell out.
But the
bureaucrats in uniform say this wouldn't be nice. Bush doesn't
want to be an extremist.
If you don't
want to be an extremist, then get our troops the hell out of
Iraq.
Nothing
liberals advocate ever works. But Rush Limbaugh says that the
left is "a legitimate point of view." So our policy is a
compromise with proven leftist nonsense, the holy "middle
course."
We won't
fight, and we won't get out.
The
bureaucrats in uniform are saying, "We will have to stay in
Vietnam, sorry, I mean Iraq, for a long, long time."
I've seen
this movie before.
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