The Silence of the Monster

To:-- Truthout.Org

Re:-- U.S. Government Conspiracy of Silence Covering up Murders a Guantánamo

Since 2003 we Woodchippers have demanded that our elected representatives speak out against the Governments barbarities.

Back in June 2006 we wrote to senators (the ultra 'liberal' Barbara Boxer included) demanding that they speak out against the ongoing torture at Guantanamo. Of course we had no way of knowing that the suicides were murders. What we did know was that Washington's dismissal of the suicides as reflecting "no regard for life" was a "depravity" that bespoke the "moral putrefaction" that pervaded the government.

Back in 2005 we protested the "pulpification" murder of a 22 year old Afghani cab driver by US Army goon interrogators who strung him up at beat him to death over a four day period; and back in 2003 we excoriated the beyond belief brutality of the Guantanamo camp commander who dismissed detainee suicides as the acts of psychiatric cases with mental problems... Problems caused by US provided torture.

So when the 2006 "suicides" came to light we wanted to know: "When are you and your supine colleagues going to show some impulse other than craven ambition and political cowardice? When will you recover a sense of shame? When will rise up and speak out against the depravity of this Administration and the culture of thuggery that has seized Washington?"

We never received an answer. We never heard a peep.

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A Zig Zag Wall

To:--Truthout

Re:--A report on the Christians Only hiring policies of "World Vision" an international NGO charity that receives public US funds

1) I am *very* suspicious of anyting USIA is involved in. 2) I was never fooled by Obama's pseudo-progressivism. 3) I am not entirely at ease with fundamentalist networking in the Pentagon and other branches of government.

HOWEVER, I would put a brake and a gag on anti-clerical, atheist, secularist rants. The idea of a "wall of separation" between Church and State is yet another absurdity from the lexicon of Jeffersonian Conceits. Church and State intersect all the time and always will. The delicate rule fashioned by the US Supreme Court is that state action (1)must have a secular legislative purpose; (2) must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion and (3) must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. --

In applying this standard to World Vision, the following should be taken into account: 1) what percentage of its operations are overseas, and not in the USA and 2) what the taxpayer monies specifically fund. The Establishment Clause was directed against the oppressiveness of officializing a particular creed and requiring religious conformity for office holding and receipt of government benefits. I do find it hard to see how those evils are implicated here.

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Badgering Peter to Pay Back Paul

To:-- San Francisco Chronicle

Re:-- Jewish Complaints about Pope Benedict's Upcoming Visit to a Synagogue in Rome

It is irrational and obsessional to be grinding an axe against Pope Pius XII for supposedly "not doing enough" to "save the Jews." What was he supposed to do, with what? when? and on the basis of what knowlege?

Jews who harbor these resentments seem to think that the entire conflict revolved around them and that "saving the Jews" ought to have been everyone's top priority. This is petulant nonsense. The actual nature and extent of Nazi exterminations was not known until 1945. The Pope was the spiritual leader of Catholics who were embroiled in the conflicts and were themselves (laity and clergy) persecuted by Nazis. The entire continent was being blasted into rubble as millions were slaughtered in battles and bombings and dying of starvation as refugees -- and what? Pius was supposed to what? Climb some mountain and say "Stop, I say, stop! whatever you are doing to Jews!!"

Benedict should give up on "relations" that boil down to no more than Jewish bullying and badgering.

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Discovering Obama

To:-- Socialist Worker

Re:-- Waking up to the Disappointment of Obama

One did not have to wait for the summer Onion crop to cry over Obama. Back in November 2008, we chipsters wrote: "We are sorry to rain on the party, but Obama is not going to introduce any fundamental change to the neo-liberal regime... Domestically and diplomatically Obama will provide some emollients and better manners, but I doubt little else."

There will be no change until Americans wake up to the reality of what they call "their" country; and this will require them to discard 90% of what they believe to be evident and true.

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