Welcome to a Peacemaker's Place.

July 21, 2008

May you have peace for the rest of your life.

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I don't know why the FCM (the Fawning Corporate Media) can't tell the population about what Bush has done to America. Currently, the world trusts Vladimir much more than George W. Bush. The people of the United States are allowing their democracy to be dragged through the mud, the place where George W. Bush should be. With a 25% approval rating, he is already in the mud.

Obama is now the people's party's nominee for the office of the President of the United States of America. Now it is time for the people to decide who they want for the office. Now is the time for people to make their committment to vote. Don't let anyone tell you that the election is in the bag. Don't let people talk you out of voting. I would recommend that you vote as early as you can so that you have a chance to vote. With the electronic voting machines there is no telling if you will have time to vote on election day, or if the voting machine will be operative. Don't trust the new electronic voting machines. Before I go too far, I don't want anyone to believe that I would use violence in my own defense. If I am to believe the teachings of Jesus, I can not call myself one of his followers if I use violence to justify defense.

I have taken a vow of nonviolence that I try to live by. I don't own weapons and I pray that in time of need that God will help me to remain nonviolent and peaceful.

In case you don't know me, I'm 57 years old and a former seminarian in the Roman Catholic diocese of Baton Rouge, La. I have stayed with the church, as a facilitator and rabel rouser for the nonviolent Christ, for a long time.
I wasn't a good student, possibly because I had A.D.D., and believed that I could get a job after finishing school.
I still believe in the philosophy of the nonviolent Jesus, and I've professed a vow of nonviolence based on his teachings. I do not believe that violence serves any purpose other than to justify further applications of violence.
I believe that Christians lost their moral compass by not pointing out that Jesus was treated in a manner that was not consistent with the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus' death was not a ceremony of sacrifice, but has been made to look like a sacrifice so that Jesus' death could be seen as God's desire so that governments could be given freedom to kill people and otherwise control thier lives.

I want to document the fact that I am not about supporting violence in anyone's name, especially my own, not because I'm a wuss but because Jesus, the alleged Christ or anointed one did not resort to violence or allow violence to be used in his defense. I am going to be facing the powers that be.
For those of you who have read Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse Greg was nearly arrested by Frank Panepinto, a detective for Homeland Security here in Baton Rouge. Frank graduated with me from Catholic High School.

Monsignor Doug Doussan, the pastor of St. Gabriel the Archangel parish of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, informed me that the church has been repaired after two and a half years and that the Providence Group, the Archdiocese's housing corporation is under an HUD contract to replace the Lafitte Housing Project. The plan is to replace 1 for 1 housing units for the poor of New Orleans.

I was a conscientious objector to war in the 1970's. I had to make my stand as a follower of the teachings of a man that many people call Jesus Christ.
I have come to the belief that Jesus would have made a bigger impact if he had been a real person and not God disguised as one. I believe this because it would have meant that Jesus was not absolutely certain that he was God and knew the mind of God so that his followers would understand that he was not killed because God had wanted his death to look like a sacrifice.
We are less than a year from the 2008 election when we are supposed to vote for a new president. I don't trust any of the front runners because even those in the Democratic party are tied to corporations around the world. Corporations that are more concerned with making a killing, in more ways than one, than in paying its workers for the job that grants them profitability.

John F. Kennedy had serious issues with the C.I.A. Kennedy wanted to get the U.S. out of the war in Vietnam and was considering shutting down the C.I.A. This may have been the reason why he was killed, not by Oswald, but by C.I.A. Assassins who were allowed access to positions where they could kill Kennedy and save themselves from being put out of business.

I believe that both Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached just so the Constitution will be inforced. We are headed down a dark road to facism. The United States is in real trouble now.

Jack M. Balkin, Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale University says this, “The president is right about one thing Today the world faces a single man armed with weapons of mass destruction.        Manifesting an aggressive bulling attitude who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed.  This person belligerent arrogant and sure of himself truly is the most dangerous person on earth.  The problem is his name is George W. Bush and he is our president"

"There is no question anymore that the Christian church of the first 3
centuries regarded itself as a nonviolent community. It makes perfect sense.
Since their Master faithfully modeled the nonviolent love of friend and
enemy that he taught, they tried to do likewise. And by and large they
succeeded, despite terrible persecutions from Rome, under much of whose
brutal domination Christianity was a capital offense until about 300 C. E.

The first Christians tried to be faithful to Jesus' commandments to "put
away the sword," "do good to those who persecute you," "pray for those who
despitefully use you," "love your neighbor as yourself," "turn the other
cheek," "love your enemies" and "love as I have loved you." They regarded
the human body as God's temple here on earth, and, knowing that violence to
a temple was desecration and therefore forbidden, they refused to kill, and
therefore also refused to join and kill for Rome's military. Martyrdom was a
preferred option rather than even using violent means for defense. And the
church flourished in spite of it! The Roman Emperor Constantine recognized
Christianity as a valid religion around 313 C. E. and the persecutions
stopped. The church gradually evolved into the state-church, and before long
Christians were endorsing the un-Christ-like use of homicidal violence in
war. And Christianity has never been the same since.

The dark history of Constantinian Christianity's abuse of power and wealth
is difficult to relate. Christians started joining the military in large
numbers, and by 416 C. E. it was unlawful to be in the Roman army unless one
was a Christian! The police and soldier-enforced tortures of "heretics" by
the church and the massacres of non-Christians in the Crusades was soon
followed by massacres of fellow Christians. The Inquisitions were next, with
church-administered torture and murder of Jews and heretics. Bloody
Reformation wars between Catholics and Protestants were fought with the
blessings of the pope, Luther, Calvin and King Henry VIII of England. In the
Middle Ages, the organized church started actively persecuting, torturing
and murdering millions of women who were feared as female intellectuals,
midwives and "witches."

The use of atomic bombs against the civilian targets of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was perhaps the low point in Christendom's history of
un-Christ-like cruelty and inhumanity to man. It is a little known fact that
ground zero for bomb 2 was the largest Christian church in the Orient. The
Nagasaki Urakami Cathedral's community, which Imperial Japan could not
annihilate over a period of 200 years, was vaporized in 9 nanoseconds by
fellow Christians. And "christian" America still refuses to repent of this
or any of its other war crimes that happen routinely in war.

The above 4 paragraphs are from an essay by Gary G. Kohls, M.D. entitled
Christian Nonviolence and the Church. You can read the whole article by clicking
here.

Over the last several years I have tried to understand why Christians have given up on the "commandments" of Jesus who told his followers to love their enemies to pray for their persecutors and not to resist injury.