Christmas Tanks

This caught my eye when we were in Linton (IN) visiting family for Thanksgiving - or maybe that's Tanksgiving...

A tank with Christmas lights - even Christmas-light flames coming out
of the tank's gun barrel.

It seemed a strange, surreal, mixed message to me.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All and tanks...

The ACLU and You

I received the following by email this morning...

"Christmas card idea

What a clever idea!
Yes, Christmas cards. This is coming early so that you can get ready to include an important address to your list..

Want to have some fun this CHRISTMAS? Send the ACLU a CHRISTMAS CARD this year.

As they are working so very hard to get rid of the CHRISTMAS part of this holiday, we should all send them a nice, CHRISTIAN card to brighten up their dark, sad, little world..

Make sure it says "Merry Christmas" on it.

Here's the address, just don't be rude or crude. (It's not the Christian way, you know.)
ACLU
125 Broad Street
18th Floor
New York , NY 10004

Two tons of Christmas cards would freeze their operations because they wouldn't know if any were regular mail containing contributions. So spend 44 cents and tell the ACLU to leave Christmas alone. Also tell them that there is no such thing as a " Holiday Tree". . . It's always been called a CHRISTMAS TREE!

And pass this on to your email lists. We really want to communicate with the ACLU! They really DESERVE us!!

For those of you who aren't aware of them, the ACLU, (the American Civil Liberties Union) is the one suing the U.S. Government to take God, Christmas or anything Christian away from us. They represent the atheists and others in this war. Help put Christ back in Christmas!"

Actually, for those who are uninformed - the ACLU is concerned with protecting the rights of the Individual from the encroachment of the State.

Do I like and support every cause that the ACLU takes up? Absolutely not. Do I think that we need the ACLU? Absolutely.

Without an organization guarding our constitutional rights we would soon become more powerless than we already are.

Some of the battles they fight for us:

Illegal wiretapping and spying on U.S. citizens - what if the government decided you were a suspect? Would you want to be spied upon, have cameras and microphones all over your house (your bathroom, your bedroom)?
Torture - do you think it's alright to torture people? If you do I think you've lost your soul.

Illegal internments - do you approve of locking people up without any proof they should be? without a fair trial? Think about it. What if your neighbors told the government you were a terrorist? What if you had to prove you weren't, instead of the government proving you were? How do you prove a negative? They could simply say, "well we haven't found the evidence yet, but we're keeping you locked up until we do."
Preventing government from having a say in religious worship - and you who claim Christian should realize that they also fight for you, they keep the government out of your churches, and only stipulate that your church needs to stay out of government. Would you want the government telling your priests and pastors what they could talk about?

I also feel the need to point out that decorating evergreen trees and bringing greenery into the home at or around the winter solstice did not originate with Christians and Christmas. It's a tradition much more ancient than that. In fact, the early Christian church prohibited the decoration of trees and bringing evergreen bough into the home.

And, my dear emailer, I AM one of the "atheists and others" that the ACLU represents, and so are YOU.

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Matters of Concern

One of the online discussions I participate in has sort of ground to a halt over the perceived direction of our country. To me it seems that the discussion is focused on the financial crisis, fear of unemployment, fear of socialism, and other right-leaning fears.

This morning I posted the following (we'll see what comes from it - maybe there are some less-conservative lurkers on the discussion board)...

I agree that the direction that our country (and our world) is going is a concern. I am not so concerned about the political direction, although the general unwillingness to consider coming to any worthwhile compromise is very discouraging. The disoriented polarity in our government is debilitating and will reduce us to a third-rate country eventually.

I am concerned that people are not trained to think critically, to weigh the worth of the information they receive. Instead they equate loudness, or repetition, as indicators of veracity.

I am concerned that we no longer have anything that could be considered a civil society. The callous, in-your-face screaming disdainful model of communication prevalent in public and private discourse can in no way be called conversation. Without conversation, nothing is humanly possible.

I am concerned that there are no credible news/journalism organizations now - only info-media entertainews. Without responsible, disciplined, respected public-minded news sources (rather than the corporate, news-for-profit sources we are now saddled with) democracy is not possible. If the populace isn't informed (as opposed to entertained) their decisions at the voting booth are meaningless.

I am concerned that people jump at the chance to trade their liberty and rights for security - and a false security at that. Why would any thinking person be willing to give up their freedom for laws and regulations that aren't going to do much to really provide safety and security?

I am concerned about the world's willingness to use violence, rather than diplomacy, to settle disputes.

Other thoughts, anyone?

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The “year of citizens’ rights”

Going to try not to buy goods from China anymore. That will align with my ecological views and my political views...

In Sentence of Activist, China Gives West a Chill

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: December 26, 2009

Human rights advocates said the punishment for Liu Xiaobo was intended to send an unequivocal message to others who might agitate for political reform.


But this will make it hard to do...um, make that impossible.

Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: December 26, 2009

Some renewable energy technologies rely on a group of elements called rare earths, but they mainly come from environmentally damaging mines in China.

Tom Dispatch

I've added Tom Dispatch to my blogroll. It's a political statement I'm making by doing so.

I encourage people to read it, but I'll warn you ahead of time that it's not for the faint of heart. It can be scary, discouraging, infuriating, frustrating and more.

It is one of the most important things I read.

It's really hard to do it though.

Perhaps A Foundling

Last Friday, Abelisto and I took the train from Winona to Indianapolis. We were going to visit with my mother and drive back in our Taurus station wagon (so we could be a bit more sustainable in our driving - it gets between 24 and 27 mpg, while the truck, well, I have been afraid to test it - I do not really want to know how bad it is...). We left the Taurus there back in November when we brought my dad's pick-up truck home with us. My brother had been checking over the Taurus for us - it had a few problems.

On Saturday, my brother stopped by to tell us about the things he found out about the car that needed our attention once we got it home. We ended up talking about politics, the environment, and some social justice issues. About halfway through the discussion, I asked my brother if he was libertarian. He said except for drugs and prostitution, he is one.

My sister and her husband are probably republican. My other brother, is definitely conservative, I do not know if he is more likely to be republican or libertarian and to the best of my knowledge my mother has always voted republican, although this time she may not - she is disgusted and disquieted about the condition of the world and our government's abuses. She, at 72, is probably far more liberal than my siblings, far more open to ideas and the views of "the other."

Where did I come from? Or maybe a better question is how did I get to where I am? I told my mother I felt like a foundling, like a misfit in my own family. She said that I have had a "larger life" than my siblings. I have lived more places, had more education, experienced more hardships, been abused, isolated, marginalized - and survived all of it, fairly intact and sane.

Maybe she is right. I think that I have not always been as liberal as I am now. In fact I know that I have not. For most of my life I did not even allow myself to express my thoughts or even know what I thought about a great many things - at least on the surface. I think that over time, I began to collect ideas and opinions which I hid away in compartments in my head, taking them out to study them when I could, when it was safe.

Does one need to experience injustice, poverty, abuse, and conflict in order to understand its impact? I think some people may be able to intuit the magnitude of these violences. But I was an extremely self-centered child/adolescent/young adult. I guess I had to live in it before I realized the weight of violence and abuse and how it pressed me down, made me tired and weak and powerless.

And I had to feel all of that personally, deep down in my bones, before I could develop any empathy for others, any understanding of privilege and lack, any passion for social justice and critical thinking. Before I could learn to be kind or to stand up to violence and injustice.

Of course, I am still working on it.

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