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How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?
Two: one to buy the lightbulb, the other to sell it back at a profit.UpeCity, I loved it…there is so much sensitivity, profound thought and talent on this Forum that it never ceases to be amaze me…. 🙂
Just wanted to share Castro’s explicit views on religion which are contradictory to Sprite’s and Castro’s contradictory actions (based on his own implicit beliefs) regarding religion on the island which are “dead on” with Sprite’s explicit views. Humans are very complex and like I said before our most explicit ideals might not be what our true (implicit) ideals are–those you can only know by watching someone’s actions:
What we do know is that the US has been incredibly lucky to have had Founding Fathers that recognized the importance of religious freedom and if Ron Paul’s promise to restore the Constitution of the US along with its Bill of Rights is an honest one, then he will NOT be promoting the DEATH of religious believes in America, but once again supporting the right for every person in the US to be able to practice their faith in whatever manner they choose as long as that doesn’t infringe on the rights of another to practice theirs…
When the Pope was coming to Cuba:
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y98/jan98/17ex2.htmHAVANA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – When Cuba’s President Fidel Castro emerged from his historic first meeting with Pope John Paul at the Vatican in November 1996, the veteran Communist leader sounded like an awed schoolboy.
“For me it’s a miracle I have been able to meet the Pope,’ Castro said, speaking in an unusually humble tone. He said he never would have dreamed of meeting the Pontiff, calling himself a modest fighter and politician who did not deserve such an honour.
…
In his December speech, he announced he would grant Cubans a Christmas Day holiday for the first time in 28 years. He seemed almost sentimental as he recalled eating “apple, grapes and nougat’ at Christmas in his childhood and insisted Cuba had not dumped the holiday for anti-religious reasons…
….(THIS ONE REALLY KILLS ME, A MAN THAT SAYS HE’S A NON-BELIEVER SAYING THAT A MAN THAT ENJOYED EXECUTING PEOPLE EVEN WHEN THEY WERE INNOCENT (AS PHYSICALLY DEMONTRATED BY HIS LAUGHTER AND PARTICULAR SMILE) LIKE CHE WOULD HAVE BEEN MADE A SAINT—–HA!!!!)
In his conversation with Frei Betto, an advocate of liberation theology, Castro firmly declared there was no contradiction between Marxism and Christianity. He added that legendary leftist guerrilla Ernesto “Che’ Guevara probably would have been “made a saint’ if he had been a Catholic since he had “all the virtues.’
http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro/1971/19711205.3
(Castro was answering questions in a press conference in Ecuador, 1971)[Question] What are your views on religion?
[Answer] As a child I was introduced to the teaching of the church but I
never received profound religious instruction. When I talked with priests I
questioned them about the reasons behind a religious crisis. Owing to
instruction I received they made me aware of religious faith. But I cannot
say that I ever had that faith. I do not have it now.[Question] Can religion and Marxism coexist in Cuba?
[Answer] Yes, not only in Cuba.
[Question] Can political ideas also coexist?
[Answer] That depends. Imperialist ideas cannot coexist with revolutionary
ideas. The ideas of millionaires and those of beggars cannot coexist. I
have my concept of different ideas responding to historically different
factual conditions of social classes. The ideas we champion are socialist
ideas. In the future they will be communist, serving the egalitarian
society, the classless society, the true society comprising fraternity and
equality–that is the true human equality and the goal we seek.http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/clark12298.html
(This is only part of the article, you can view the whole article by using the link…)January 22, 1998
RELIGIOUS REPRESSION IN CUBA
At the Time of the Pope’s Visit to the Island
By: Juan Clark, Ph.D.
What will Pope John Paul II find during his visit to Cuba? It is well known that religion has been severely repressed by Castro, but what has been the nature of said repression and what is its current status? What can be expected as a result of the pope’s visit? Over two decades of experiential study of Cuban social reality allow us to explore this issue. Let us make a brief historical overview.
More than persecution in the traditional sense, religion has been seriously repressed through various direct and indirect means. All religious groups have been seriously affected. The Catholics, as the largest religious group in Cuba, have been the most severely impacted in terms of material losses, while the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the most directly repressed. All their temples were shut down.
In 1960, after initially supporting the revolution, the Catholic Church valiantly confronted the Castro regime. Indicators of a new dictatorial trend were visible, though shrouded by populist policies. Among these signs were the arbitrary executions and trials that started in 1959, the government’s shrewd takeover of student, labor and professional organizations, along with the increased placement of communists or their sympathizers in government and military positions, the progressive confiscation of private property and, finally, the complete elimination of the free press. The Church alerted the people about the evils that would come from the turn towards Communism. The strong pastoral letter of August 1960 only increased the regime’s antireligious actions.
Many believers, following the Church’s teachings, decided to confront the regime. They fought justly and bravely, trying to implement the ideals of democracy promised by Castro in the Sierra Maestra. Many paid with their lives or long years in prison for this “crime.”
In response to this confrontation, Castro launched a campaign against the Catholic bishops and attempted to create a national Church. By late 1960, mobs organized by the government began to harass church services. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion led to a more open and direct repression, with mass arrests of clergy and desecration of churches. In May, 1961, the government confiscated the vast private school system and many seminaries in an attempt to deeply strike at religion. In September, the traditional procession in Havana honoring Cuba’s patron, the Virgen de la Caridad, in the church of the same name, was violently repressed, resulting in the death of one of the Catholics. Incredibly, the government portrayed the victim as a martyr of the revolution… That incident prompted the immediate expulsion of 131 clergy on board the Spanish ship Covadonga, including an outstanding bishop, Boza Masvidal and Father Goberna, a renown hurricane expert.
Direct repression had its climax at this time. Many religious personnel were forced into exile through coercion, intimidation or the inability to practice their teaching trade. Four priests were sentenced to prison for serving as chaplains to the opposition’s guerrillas. To further hurt the Church, a dynamic young Franciscan priest, Miguel Loredo, was, in 1966, falsely accused and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, –the same amount of time Castro received in 1953 after leading the assault on the Moncada barracks—for harboring a suspect in a failed skyjacking attempt. He served ten of those fifteen years… This opportunity further served to confiscate the Church’s only printing shop as well as the San Francisco convent. Many Evangelical ministers were also imprisoned, some for long periods. It must be pointed out that these actions were always undertaken through a nonreligious pretext, as in the Loredo case.
In this context, many ministers and seminarians, Catholic and Evangelicals were sent to the newly created UMAP labor concentration camps in 1965. Among those confined were the present cardinal Jaime Ortega and the current bishop Alfredo Petit, along with many lay people. Among these in the UMAP were homosexuals and others the regime considered “social scum.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses were especially mistreated at the UMAPs, which closed in 1968. The purpose was to terrorize the religious community.
The 1960s also saw the dawn of a more subtle, but very effective, indirect repression. This less visible form of repression used education and the work place as its main vehicles. It begun as early as grammar school with simple questions posed to schoolchildren practicing their faith, in an attempt to ridicule them in front of their classmates. Students have a Cumulative Academic Record that supervises “ideological integration” and the religious involvement of students and their parents. This involvement would constitute a “demerit” on their record and would be used to deny access to the university or to careers with social impact to those who had that blotch in their record. This indirect repression followed Castro’s religious policy of “making apostates not martyrs,” and thus began the slow process of gradually attempting to choke off the religious community.
Indirect repression has also impacted the individual through the work place. The government’s economic monopoly, whereby the state owns all means of production promoted discrimination against those who practiced religion. “Being religious” has constituted a stain on the worker’s Labor Record preventing occupational advancement, and affecting the person’s standard of living, since the government use to distribute important consumer goods through the work place where “ideological integration” played a role. As with education, the “religious” have been forced give up opportunities for promotion, becoming second class citizens. This has been, in actual practice, an ideological apartheid.
Religious ministers have also suffered strong repression. Defamatory letters, instigation of rumors, and constant spying are routinely employed. Harassing phone calls and blackmail, mostly through sexual entrapments, are used to psychologically destabilize them and promote their departure from Cuba. Foreign clergy have also been repressed. Some have been openly expelled from Cuba, while others have had their visa renewal rejected as was the recent case involving Sister Ligia Palacio, a Colombian nun who dared to write “too harshly” concerning human rights in Cuba in Vitral, a modest (only over 1000 copies are made by photocopy procedure) but outstanding publication of the Pinar del Rio diocese. Other foreigners have suffered an equal fate.
….
After his release from prison in 1976, Fr. Loredo continued to be a persona non grata. He, along with many of his parishioners were constantly harassed. This culminated in a mysterious, near fatal car accident in which he was a pedestrian. The Church finally promoted his “voluntary” exit from the island in 1984. A rather similar case occurred in 1995, when small-town priest Fr. Jose Conrado Rodriguez wrote a letter which courageously but respectfully criticized Castro and his regime. This increasingly popular priest had to leave the country in 1996 “to conduct studies abroad.”
By the end of the 1980s, and after the publication of the book Fidel Castro and Religion (Fidel Castro y la Religion), with Frei Beto, where Castro projected a rather sympathetic view of religion, there was a relaxation of repression for reasons of tactical convenience. People began to attend religious services in greater numbers. Educational as well as labor discrimination for reasons of religious practice have diminished. However, the Cumulative Academic and Labor Records still exist and totalitarian power can demolish any religious effort or individual considered potentially “dangerous.”
Roark – You seem to have some memory issues.
“All along”?..hmm, I seem to recall that from the outset “the crowd” were the ones that wanted the war in Iraq and George Bush gave them exactly what they wanted, and that takes not one ounce of bravery!
It was a small minority in the U.S. who were smart enough to see through the lies and were brave enough to stand up to the mob (remember the Dixie Chicks!). They received death threats and their livelihoods were jeopardised because the mob concluded they were traitors! That’s how it goes in the Land of the Free; you can have an opinion but God forbid it differs from the one the masses want.
Now the crowd wants out but of course it’s too late for that and it won’t happen. The Democrats go through the farce of trying to force the President to get out, all the while knowing it won’t happen but that it looks good to voters.
The Civil War was a farce in its own right, but that’s for another day. I guess you got your “history” from the books offered in the U.S. education system so your position is not that surprising.
P.S. Do you still eat “Freedom fries”, or have you reverted to French fries again?!!
Now it becomes clear the French knew a thing or two about war; don’t pick a fight unless you really have to. The Gods of war seem to see it the same way.
For the record I do agree with your Climate Change sceptisism.
Edited on Nov 18, 2007 17:16
Now the crowd wants out but of course it’s too late for that and it won’t happen. The Democrats go through the farce of trying to force the President to get out, all the while knowing it won’t happen but that it looks good to voters.
Simon, you hit the nail on the head. It happens all the time. Politicians backing a favorable bill knowing full well it hasn’t got a chance to pass. It satisfies their constituents, and still gets them the votes in order to be re-elected.
Many of us, including myself, were all for this war at the outset, thinking it was the right thing to do. I have changed my opinion, and so have many others. There is no valid reason to be there, especially after the WMD removal position we took, has been shown to be false. The problem is, if we bail out now, Iraq will fall into a terrible state. If we stay, it looks like we will be there for another 50 years. Which means, we are never going to leave. I can’t predict the future, but we have gotten ourselves into a mess that has no good solution in sight. In hindsight, we should have not gone in there in the first place.
My daughter just returned from an annual wounded Marines ball with her fiancée in San Diego. Six weeks after arriving in Iraq his Hum V was hit by a roadside bomb. He and the young man that road in the back suffered severe leg injuries, his two companions riding up front didn’t make it… Her account of the ball is one of disfigured young men and broken spirits.
These are proud brave kids, we’ve let them down. We need to stop this neo-con gravy train, take back our republic, prosecute the traitors and care for our wounded…
I agree UpeCity…..I hope your daughter’s fiancee is recovering, gets the best medical treatment and general support he deserves. I know no stronger support to give anyone and certainly to give to a soldier than to get them out of harms way…They are courageous young men and women that are fighting in Iraq on someone’s whim and baseless accusations that have LONG been proven false. They are treated as disposable human beings and will be paying the “price” of war long after any administration finally calls them home. I also know that anyone that is against the war is NOT against the troops, they ARE part of the reason why many of us never supported this illegitimate war or later came that conclusion. The whole thing is incredibly sad and infuriating at the same time…
Simon, “Now the crowd wants out but of course it’s too late for that and it won’t happen.”
We both agreed that “going against the crowd takes courage”
Reading your words proves my point. I also love that the President’s opponents are so concerned about his low approval ratings and use those ratings as for reason to get out of Iraq. I understand that you don’t like the whole situation and that you think that President Bush is an evil liar, but you can’t fault his conviction.
…and now “the Civil War was a farce.” Wow! Now I am really against government schools.
Roark, I have a personal value I hold dear and that’s that I do NOT hate anyone and that includes Mr. Bush. I DO hate what he has done and continues to stubbornly proceed with without any regard for human life, ours or theirs! That is NOT perseverance that’s BLIND devotion to a cause NO MATTER what the consequences are for others. He is not just any person, according to Jefferson and public policy, “When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.” He no longer belongs to himself, but rather belongs to the people he’s supposed to represent. He has shown NO respect for that. I’m not saying he should sway to every change of public opinion (which in the beginning he created thru lies and inculcating fear in the American public); I’m saying he should stand firm on principle and truth not on pride or any other objective. And considering how this war was begun and how it’s still being run without regard for human life—there’s not one ounce of decent principle in it!!! There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind once you have realized you were on a path that was not the appropriate one. Ben Franklin, who was a genius said, “For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.” Unfortunately, he also said, “few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them…Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.”
If we are to believe that this administration is just being “perseverant,” then one must admit that this administration has worked INCREDIBLY HARD at this other observation which Ben Franklin also made so many years ago—(now remember Mr. Franklin is considered a hero of US Colonial times, an accomplished scientist, a great scholar, a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence among MANY other accomplishments which I don’t have the time to mention), “WE ARE ALL BORN IGNORANT, BUT ONE MUST WORK HARD TO REMAIN STUPID.” But I wouldn’t be so quick to consider this option as tempting as it may be, I believe that what on the surface may seem as PERSERVERANCE to some and UNADULTURATED STUPIDITY to others might have other deep rooted personal and political causes, NONE of which should be allowed to force our continued deployment in Iraq because this is not about you and me having this little disagreement, this is about real people’s blood being shed on both sides and though you many not care, I am disgusted at the thought that we have been part of a GENOCIDE or what else can you call killing over half a million civilians in Iraq when the supposed reasons for the war are ALL NULL AND VOID?? What do you expect those people to feel about Americans after the harm we have freely bestowed upon them? Stop to consider what the Jews and the rest of the world thought of the Germans after WWII? After WWII we called the process of systematically killing a group of people GENOCIDE when the Nazis did it. What will we and the world call THIS when this war is over? A rose by any other name is still a rose, Mr. Roark!!!
Rebecca, The VA botched his first surgery, but he’s doing much better now. Considering he’s one of the lucky ones, he’ll still sport an artificial knee the rest of his life and god knows what nightmares.
We tend to vacillate between being part of the problem and the solution… Vote along party lines. But, party lines won’t pull us out of this nose dive and single issue voters are easy prey for politicians… Until we set aside our single issue differences and find common ground, we’ll continue to be lead by the ring in our snouts. Regrettably our public servants have become “company property” not “public property” as you correctly stated…
You’re right UpeCity, party lines will NOT save the day…That’s why I don’t vote along those lines and why I think “We the people” in the US have to do MORE than just vote. We have to be willing to stand up and say THIS WAR IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!! For goodness sake, there was more uproar during Vietnam than what has been DONE (not said, plenty of complaining being done now…) to demand this illegitimate action be stopped for good and we have no one else to blame, but ourselves for that….
Rebecca, Good point… The difference I see between the Vietnam and Iraq Wars is, despite limited air time, we had nightly reporting of the conflict from journalist. Not 24×7 flag waving pundits on corporate payrolls. Kids were being drafted, not volunteering. Even though I’m against the draft, it would likely light a fire in the anti-war camp…
UpeCity, There are many fine young men and women, not to mention the lifers in the military today, but the volunteer rate has been dropping and obviously you can’t blame the kids—-So what’s changed this time around—Where are the recruits coming from? The typical military standards have dropped and the lies being told to get recruits into the military have grown in order to keep up with the growing demand due to Iraq. I couldn’t believe it when my daughter’s classmate went into boot camp before ever finishing HS–Do you know where this boy was recruited? In a mall and he had NOT dropped out of HS until they told him to do this and join the military! The amount of stories I’ve heard of how non-citizens are promised citizenship/legal status residency in exchange for armed service are endless, but even after being injured in Iraq, that promise doesn’t always pan out…In my affluent town there are no recruiting offices, but if you drive over to other areas–you have another story. Heck the other day I even heard a CIA recruiting radio ad on a Spanish radio station. The day the demographic statistics for military recruiting is fully reviewed we should not be surprised to know which neighborhoods and which groups have been most heavily recruited…Everyone across America has been hurt by this and there are groups that have been specially vulnerable to the military cleansing–oh, I meant recruiting going on top of it all…
Rebecca, you are accusing American soldiers of genocide, comparing American soldiers to Nazis and you claim your support for them. You have no moral clarity on this issue at all.
When this war is over, “what will we call it?” Victory… and no thanks to the left in this country.
Don’t disgrace American soldiers by comparing them to Nazis.
I TRULY do support our soldiers, the question is how can you say you support them and send them to their death or to an unnecessary war that will scar them forever in a million ways? In my post I ask you to give this a name–The killing of over half of a million CIVILIAN NOT MILITARY Iraqis done indirectly or directly. This is atrocious and could hardly be considered an oops or collateral damage. I fully support the soldiers, I don’t support their orders, which is why I WANT THEM HOME SAFE AND SOUND. I find it incredibly arrogant and intellectually disabled of anyone that can actually say they support those brave men & women by GETTING THEM KILLED AND INJURED for no other apparent reason than, “well, it might have been a mistake, but we’re there now and so we can’t leave” or worse, “any lunatic that hasn’t listened to a word Mr. Bush has said when he ADMITTED that the supposed intel was wrong!” Heck NO, we should have left in 2003 when instead of finding weapons of mass destruction, we were bombarded with WEAPONS OF MASS STUPIDITY. What kind of gratitude do you think sending a kid to his death or to witness a war shows on your part??? I don’t know anyone that has a “spare” loved ones to give away on either side. I hope no one “LOVES & RESPECTS” you that inappropriately! My father has been involved in intelligence services for a long time and he can’t even fathom how the US went to war based on the lies of student curiously name “CURVEBALL.” The intelligence community in the US is one of the best around the world and if you think that there wasn’t enough IQ in the CIA to have people raising red flags all along you’re incredibly nieve, but this war was begun and continues to be processed under the GROUPTHINK mentality. You know, like the kind that let us send Challenger up in space even though we had full knowldege that this spacecraft should not be launched when the weather was under 53 degrees Fahrenheit because the rings would not hold out, but we went ahead anyway and launched it because they just didn’t want to look bad and so everyone caved to follow the “leadership”—only to have Challenger blow up in mid air and along with its crew! GROUPTHINK mentality can only exist based on certain leadership styles and can only be eradicated with a different leadership style!
I guess deer or any other type of hunter wants that population to be strong and healthy so that the hunter can reap the benefits, but I don’t think that deer would consider hunters their friend or think that they are being “supportive to them.” Don’t be absolutely incoherent and say you support people/soldiers that your opinion is sending them to be killed, injured and psychologically damaged over NON EXISTING REASONS! Once this whole mess is over, there will be real numbers of soldiers dead and injured and real numbers of civilians dead and injured to have to explain to ourselves and the world. There are already people setting up international legal action regarding the war in Iraq. Do you ever read or do you just watch TV?
“unnecessary war” is where we differ. I think it is a necessary war and one we will finish.
I love that you think I don’t read and only watch t.v. because I disagree with you. You are so much more informed than I because I disagree with you. By the way, was it your father who messed up the intel on this. If it was he should be fired.
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