Do the Pashto call for civility? If they did, would we listen?
Read Time:2 Minute, 43 Second
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,Was blind but now I see.
John Newton – English poet, clergyman and slave trader.
Republican efforts to dehumanize the opposition are nothing new, “Wanted for Treason” posters distributed by the John Birch Society lined JFK’s Dallas parade route. What I believe brought the extremists closer to mainstream acceptance was the rise of right-wing talk radio and Roger Ailes marketing Fox News to that market.
Liberal Democrats are the umbrella group over faceless bureaucrats and illegal immigrants, tree huggers and pot smokers, welfare cheats and union goons and every other derogatory term the Right uses to paint as unworthy all who oppose their sociopathic agenda.
I wholeheartedly and completely condemn the Right, their media and their supporters. I condemn their agenda, and I condemn dehumanization – from both sides.
No, I’m not talking about false equivalence. Quod erat demonstrantum, aside from the occasional sign at a demonstration liberals just don’t do that. “Both sides should tone it down” is what Ailes said the other day and it’s equivalent to stepping between a bully and a small child and telling both to tone it down. No, I’m talking about liberal dehumanization of war casualties.
US military counterinsurgency experts put the civilian to target death ratio of our drone attacks at 50 to 1. I’ll write that again – experts put the civilian to target death ratio of US drone attacks at fifty to one.
Liberal Democrats by and large oppose war on principle, yet there is little public outcry or mourning period for Iraqi or Afghan or Pakistani deaths. Certainly nothing approaching the ire directed at Palin and Fox and Beck following the Tucson shootings. Maybe it’s because Arabs and Pashtos look and talk funny, or maybe it’s because the media refers to them as suspects, or insurgents, or militants. There’s a possibility both mundane and awful – simple partisan politics. A majority of elected Democrats support the wars. Obama, Pelosi, Franken, Gabrielle Giffords – all ultimately supported what logic and their own consciences knew to be attacks on civilians.
Parishioners in England flocked to the sermons of John Newton. Newton did not hide the fact that he continued his participation in the slave trade for several years after finding God. This knowledge did not dissuade the attendees, participation in his worship services was so great a gallery was added for the overflow crowds. His past may have been forgiven by the parishioners, it may have been overlooked. It may not have mattered to them. Newton’s willing participation in the genocidal horror of slavery was not a concern of 18th century English worshipers.
Possibly John Newton’s parishioners forgave him his sins. The sins of our elected leaders are ongoing, however.
Knowing the history of European Christianity, I would assume the majority of Newton’s followers were indifferent to his past. The well-being of Africans was detached from their daily lives. They did not present the human face that their own underprivileged presented to them. If I am out of line I’m sure I’ll hear from people, but are liberal Democrats so different when we do not equate the suffering of our own people with the suffering we cause for others?
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Absolutely Christians are exploiting Africans and so many others.They made the situation in Sudan so much worse by funding the “Christian” side in a war over resources, to use one of so many examples. People continue to spread hate and misery, in the name of God. Profit of course playing a huge role, fueled by religious zealotry.
People, who sometimes happen to be Christians, are often exploitative. It proves that using Christianity as a tool for evil is evil. I guess it does nothing to prove that Christianity itself is evil. It is not. It is a bit goofy more of the time, but not inherently evil.
“a bit goofy…..” John you draw the old Suzanne Sommers rationale we Christians often use to justify our belief.
Yes, goofy was bad choice. Silly. Yes, silly!
Oso, your point about Liberals resounds… still; the problem is a lack of mainstream information! I think it’s part of our job as “off the cuff” commentators / bloggers to convince our Liberal / Democratic leaders to change their minds’ or loose support (in numbers that can grow with rising awareness … which YOU provide exactly like this…)
I’m saying that Africans (within many Nations) are still being horribly exploited by evangelica / Catholic “missionaries” and officials. Between exorcisms, witch killings and pedophilia, the ‘christers’ are still morally, physically and culturally fucking the Indigenous communities. You know?
I should add, that the exploitation has a bottom line: PROFIT.
John Newton’s flock probably did not need to forgive him because they wouldn’t have known about his slave-trading side line. Not many brown and black faces in England until the 1950s, no cotton to pick, no sugar cane to cut, no great plantations. And when the great migration from the country to the cities began during the industrial revolution, black slaves not needed, plenty of white ones.
I hate to nitpick, but you said you would write it again, then wrote something else:
US military counterinsurgency experts put the civilian to target death ratio of our drone attacks at 50 to 1. I’ll write that again – experts put the civilian to target death ratio of US drone attacks at fifty to one.
“1” Is not equal to “one” and US is not equal to our Liar! I know they mean the same thing, so you should have said: “To put it another way.”
Secondly, you are wise beyond your years. I don’t know how old you are, but you are wiser than most people that age. You are one of my MMA heroes, sir.
John,
I must say I stand corrected !
I tend to believe I am cute beyond my years, far cuter than those my age.
You are cute, no question.
Oso, you drive me back to my often used words of a great figure for those who might remember him. Pogo said, “We have found the enemy and he is us.”
Here is one word answer girl. To the first question, probably, the second will take two, unfortunately no. That is sad to me, when we could start making this world a better place for all the inhabitants therein.
You bring an interesting point. Since the start of this disaster in the Gulf, I have been shamed by my generation.
Where are the draft-card burners, the kids who willingly got their heads cracked by billyclubs to protest against Vietnam? Listen, do you hear them cry out against this latest war?…..(crickets)…the silence is deafening. Even when it has been proven over and over that we were lied into war….nothing.
Where are the media pictures of dying Afghans and Iranians and American kids bleeding on the dinner-time news? These are the things that started to end Vietnam, why are they missing now? Walter Cronkite must be spinning in his grave.
Or is that what’s missing? No media voice we can trust, no one to tell us the unvarnished truth? If that is the reason we make no outcry, then woe is us. We have no conscience because no one has told us to have one? Shame on us all.
You’re making a point I’ve been coming back to repeatedly over the years, only you making it more eloquently. Thanks, Oso.
Side note: I was not aware that Newton continued in the slave trade for years after “finding god.” That should make his story a lot less inspirational.
Mike,from what I’d read Newton was “saved” due his life being spared during a harrowing instance in one of his voyages. He dedicated his life to God afterward, but didn’t get out of the slave trade for several years. I’m sure most televangelists would understand.