Barack Obama is re elected as the US president. A sigh of resignation rather than relief is maybe the best way to describe the feeling. There is no real enthusiasm for his victory. His rights for the rich opponent, Mitt Romney, backed by the religious rant mob was just too dangerous an option.
Watching the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which the re-elected President is giving the green light to, I wonder even more about the dubious benefits of the Obama victory. I found myself returning to Conor Friedersdorf’s piece in the Atlantic prior to the election. It was one of the more worrying, and for that reason better, bits of commentary. In it he outlined why he would not vote for Obama.
‘I don't see how anyone who confronts Obama's record with clear eyes can enthusiastically support him.’ He spoke out against Obama’s ‘sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids’ arguing that they should have been deal breakers.
Friedersdorf hit out at Obama terrorising innocent Pakistani men women and children on a daily basis, and his presidential decree that it is okay to extra judicially murder US citizens.
With blunt candour he stated ‘Romney revels in bellicosity; Obama soothes with rhetoric and kills people in secret. To hell with them both.’
While hardly hot enough it seems just about right.
Marie Stopes
When the opening of the Marie Stopes Clinic in Belfast was first announced I numbered amongst those thousands of men and women who sent the centre “positive messages”. I contacted Dawn Purvis, the programme director, and wished her well in her battle for women’s rights. Dawn had earlier told the Independent the clinic was ‘warm, welcoming and non-judgemental, offering safety, security and confidentiality.’
More than was to be expected from the mob of zealots that gathered outside: the devotees of the old murderous bible who had turned up to pray and sing hymns. That funny old hate driven misogynist book has this advice for those who might wish to slaughter children:
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuel 15:3)
The adherents of this toxic drivel will pontificate to women about their bodies, their rights and the wellbeing of children. Again and again it is within this type that we find cause to be relentlessly driven back to the wisdom of Steven Weinberg:
Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Gay Jesus
Another biblical zealot who graces the political scene up North is Paul McClean, the DUP chair of Magherafelt District council. This god botherer said of homosexuality ‘as a Christian who believes in the stance of the bible I believe it is morally wrong. It is spiritually wrong and I don’t think it should be legal.’ Like Iris the Virus Christian McClean believes that gay marriage is an abomination. He gets support in this from the husband of Iris who after becoming First Minister claimed that homosexuality was against Christian teaching.
But according to the Anglican priest Paul Oestreicher:
Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried. The idea that he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the other hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong.
It hardly makes him any less moral a person. As Oestreicher concluded his 2010 article:
Whether Jesus was gay or straight in no way affects who he was and what he means for the world today. Spiritually it is immaterial. What matters in this context is that there are many gay and lesbian followers of Jesus – ordained and lay – who, despite the church, remarkably and humbly remain its faithful members. Would the Christian churches in their many guises more openly accept, embrace and love them, there would be many more disciples.
Too much for the purveyors of domination theology to grasp.
To hell with them both is about as good it gets in relation to Obama and Romney, Obama promised so much the first time round and people thought that as Americas first black president that he would deliver,he turned out to be a proper uncle Tom doing his masters bidding with the same enthusiasm as those gone before him.
ReplyDeleteMarie Stopes, I would object to anyone telling me I couldnt have a wank, my body my decision!
Paul Mc Clean of the dup like his associates in that party has a problem with homosexuality!they want to fuck and be fucked at the same time,and film it as it happens, to be played after a boring morning of free P bible thumping shit..
AM
ReplyDeleteI doubt that many Americans (USA) voted enthusiastically for Obama, they put there cross against his name because they saw him as the better of the two options.
Years ago, when Clinton was campaigning for his second term, I was talking to a trade union activist and baggage handler at Minneapolis airport, he said something which struck me as spot on. "these days I vote for the guy who will do the least damage, the best I hope for is a President leaves office with the country no worse off than when he came in."
It is a sad and somewhat pathetic fact many of us have spent much of our lives doing this.
Mick/Organised Rage,
ReplyDeleteunfortunately, this seems to be the way it works. It also tells us a lot about the perceived implausibility of the alternatives.
O'Bama change and the American dream...both a fantasy.
ReplyDelete~please save us~
ReplyDelete...
Oh, and on a completely separate subject, don't call Romney "rich." It implies that Obama isn't obscenely rich, too.
The already cash strapped people of the Irish Republic are now going to have to fork out MEGA BUCKS $$$£££££ to roly poly quisling $inn £ein,s Michelle Gildernew,because she could,nt walk down the steps in the Dail..Arrogance and not having the sense to wear appropriate footwear is going to cost the taxpayer there dearly. CAN WE AFFORD REPRESENTATION OF THIS QUALITY.....
ReplyDeleteA suspected IRA informant being tortured by an IRA informant in a house supplied by an IRA informant..you couldnt make this up folks....
ReplyDeleteMarty,
ReplyDeletethe story goes that the housholders felt their house had been taken over by touts but only one of them was tied up.
Anthony/Marty:
ReplyDeleteAnd those same touts were all in the nutting squad, that's when Morrison said he was set up, just goes to show what depths they sank to just to save there own arses, and, there handlers didn't give two hoots about any of them, but, then again, that's the British for you, Will touts ever learn?, I don't think so.
Itsjustmacker,
ReplyDeleteagents entrapped by agents - what a sordid murky affair
Anthony:
ReplyDeleteYes , I agree with you, But the sad fact of life is, they are still within to this very day. We are off on holiday this evening for a short break ,so may I take this opportunity to wish You, Your Good Lady and children a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year, also to all on the TPQ.
Itsjustmacker,
ReplyDeletethe same to you and yours. Feet up and relax