Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Bryan Fischer & Mike Huckabee:After yet another mass killing at a school, the religious right comes out of the wood work to explain that such killings wouldn’t happen if we just let prayer back into the schools or God let a tragedy happen because we moved away from Him. What a bunch of stank rubbish! I know that the religious right are unreasonable and shun logic but equating a school shooting with not being able to pray in school is a load of crap.
I remember watching the CBS show “All in the Family” when I was a kid. It ran from 1971 to 1979. One of the main characters, Archie Bunker, was a white middle class bigot and the show highlighted his bigotry for comedy. Bunker usually was shown to be wrong and he would seem to change his ways at least until the next episode. I was reminded of him when thinking about the current members of the Republican party and one of my conservative friends who likes to call me names even though he is wrong all the time. They don’t see the farce they’ve become by irrationally holding on to ideas that are no longer valid.
Here is how Archie Bunker is described in the Wikipedia entry for the show “All in the Family“:
There was an organized protest of Walmart employees timed for the largest shopping day known as Black Friday. Some cheap labor Republicans complained about the protests saying it was an attack on job creators by Unions. One of my conservative friends said that people should be thankful to have a job. When I hear that excuse for poor treatment of workers it makes me mad. Walmart is one of the worse offenders and if we didn’t have laws against sweat shops they would probably do that too.
The battle between Arabs and Jews flared up again this week with rockets being fired into Israel and Israel countering with air strikes and threats of invasion. I’m not a believer or a fan in either of the religions at the heart of the conflict but I can understand the arguments. I don’t agree with the US government official stance that Israel has the right to defend itself only because I reject the entire Israeli political and military policy to date. I agree with the need of the Palestinian people not to be treated as 2nd class citizens in the land their family has called home for centuries but I don’t approve of use of rocket attacks or terrorism. There will be a two state solution but the question is how many people have to die until that happens.
The land that is Israel is claimed by Jews and Arabs as a homeland. History gives both strong evidence in their claims.
My Dad was a US Marine in Vietnam and my grandfather served in the 100th Infantry Division during World War II. Much to the chagrin of my mother I was interested in military service growing up. I thought the uniforms and equipment were cool and I like to camp, right? I had no idea about the mental and physical costs to paid serving in the military. It is nothing like the Hollywood version of war (Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers excepted). I tip my hat to all those who serve or have served in the military.
Here is the Marine Corp Band playing “Stars and Stripes Forever”