"With enough courage, you can do without a reputation." ~ Rhett Butler, in Gone With the Wind
Now hurricane Isaac has given mankind the gift of canceling the Teapublican Party's first day tomorrow. (dakinikat 2012) This gives the convention's revelers another day of debauchery as did another man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, St Augustine who had a similar good time while a student in Carthage in 4 B.C. before his conversion to Christianity. (Outler 1994)
"Jerry Lathan, 56, a delegate and contractor from Mobile, Ala., said he's not concerned with the storm. He said he brought rain gear with him and he'll enjoy having Monday off. 'There's plenty to do here. We'll have fun,' Lathan said. He admitted he would be worried if Isaac took aim for Alabama." (Thalji, Bill Varian and Steve Bousquet 2012)
And it turns out that the former RNC chair Michael Steele who was wrapped up in scandal in 2010 (justly or unjustly) is the one who picked Tampa for the 2012 convention (Daily Beast Cheat Sheet 2010) (Linkins 2010) (Martin 2012)
"The GOP search committee that unanimously selected Tampa in 2010 was led by one of Mr. Steele’s chief allies. 'Tampa stepped up big,' Mr. Steele said at the time, saying the city made the best sense for Republicans from a business standpoint." (Dinan 2012)
Romulus and Reamus
"In the 5th Century B.C. the legend of two twins, Romulus and Remus captured in narrative form the “moral” values of Rome. The city is widely believed to be the namesake of Romulus. The myth was apparently intended trace the chronology of the Late Republican and early Imperial era, dating the city's foundation to between 758 and 728 BC, and the age of Plutarch." (Davis 2012)
(Davis 2012) "The term 'plutocracy' is commonly defined as 'government by the wealthy.' In one version of the myth Romulus was given the direct ancestor of Rome's first Imperial dynasty. Together, these twins became icons of an empire on the hill similar to today’s pair of Republicans standing in front of the battleship, proclaiming the moral virtues of freedom and liberty to our better angels."
"You show a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief, a deceitful witness that uttereth lies, you soweth discord among brethren." No, this is not a direct indictment of the R & R ticket surrounded by their neocon handling and advisor team, these are the Seven Deadly Sins, as advocated by the Catholic Church. Very familiar though, to a summarized description of the R-money campaign value system. I'd add the Buddhist Defilements of "unskilful factors" such as greed, hate, delusion, opinionatedness and lack of moral concern. These are characteristics quite apparent of the power elites coming to town this week in this city in the land of Jim Crow.
I indict the Grand Obstructionist Party, or what's left of it with violation of the rules of chivalry:
"classified into three basic but overlapping areas:
1. Duties to countrymen and fellow Christians: this contains virtues such as mercy, courage, valor, fairness, protection of the weak and the poor, and in the servant-hood of the knight to his lord. This also brings with it the idea of being willing to give one’s life for another’s; whether he would be giving his life for a poor man or his lord.
2. Duties to God: this would contain being faithful to God, protecting the innocent, being faithful to the church, being the champion of good against evil, being generous and obeying God above the feudal lord.
3. Duties to women: this is probably the most familiar aspect of chivalry. This would contain what is often called courtly love, the idea that the knight is to serve a lady, and after her all other ladies. Most especially in this category is a general gentleness and graciousness to all women."
(Wikipedia et al 2012)
Above are such well known examples of recent flagrant violations I first highlight as "protection of the weak and the poor", "and in the servant-hood of the knight to his lord", and the deemed honor of sacrifice for either a poor man or his lord.
Second, "protecting the innocent" easily overlaps the other two axioms and is most blatant in the maltreatment of immigrants. And third, the so-called Teapublican "War on Women" is exemplified in the denial of "a general gentleness and graciousness to all women", especially by the "ultrasound Governor of Virginia" (who ran the party plank conference that wishes to outlaw all abortion and produce a Constitutional Amendment to facilitate same), and the "ultrasound Congressmen" such as Akin, Ryan, Bachmann, and the lot who wish to institute these travesties at the federal level.
“Recent advertisements and statements from the campaign of Governor Romney demonize families in poverty and reflect woeful ignorance about the challenges faced by tens of millions of American families in these tough economic times,' stated Sister Simone Campbell. 'We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes. Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics.” (Waldron 2012)
"A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan claimed his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-cutting budget plan, the nation's Catholic bishops reiterated their demand that the federal budget protect the poor, and said the GOP measure 'fails to meet these moral criteria." (Gibson 2012) (USCCB 2012)
"The Franciscan Action Network (FAN), a Catholic faith-based advocacy and civic engagement organization, is strongly criticizing Mitt Romney's recent ads and rhetoric regarding welfare programs and welfare recipients, urging him to spend some time in low-income communities." (Becker 2012)
(Becker 2012) "Our Christian tradition teaches that we are to treat the poor with dignity and to prioritize the poor in our policies as a society,' the organization said in a press release on Thursday. 'At a time when millions are struggling financially, it is degrading to talk about the 'dependency' of people hurting in this economy, as Gov. Romney did recently."
(Becker 2012) "While faith-based anti-poverty and charity organizations have often criticized candidates and lawmakers for a perceived unwillingness to highlight and tackle issues affecting the very poor, FAN claims Romney's rhetoric goes a step further, unfairly using welfare recipients as political props."
"The Qur'an mentions Isaac as prophet and a righteous man of God. Isaac and Jacob are mentioned as being bestowed upon Abraham as gifts of God. When angels came to Abraham to tell him of the future punishment to be imposed on Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife, Sarah, 'laughed, and We gave her good tidings of Isaac, and after Isaac of (a grandson) Jacob' (XI: 71-74); and it is further explained that this event will take place despite Abraham and Sarah's old age. Several verses speak of Isaac as a 'gift' to Abraham." (Wikipedia 2012)
(Wikipedia 2012) "The anglicized name Isaac is a transliteration of the Hebrew term Yiṣḥāq which literally means 'He laughs/will laugh'. The Bible, in Genesis states that 'Abraham fell on his face and laughed when Elohim imparted the news of their son's eventual birth. He laughed because Sarah was past the age of childbearing; both she and Abraham were advanced in age. Later, when Sarah overheard three messengers of the Lord renew the promise, she laughed inwardly for the same reason."
(Wikipedia 2012) "It was prophesied to the patriarch Abraham that he would have a son and that his name should be called Isaac. When Abraham became one hundred years old, this son was born to him by his first wife Sarah. Though this was Abraham's second son it was Sarah’s first and only child."
What's the relevance of all this "scripture", you ask ? Well, the parable of Abraham and Sarah can be directly applied to HR 212 and the Teapublican Party Platform as it now stands, in that their advanced age compares with the plight of many couples struggling to produce offspring that have benefited from the advanced technology of in vitro fertilization (IVF). And Issac is now delivering right on time.
"The Sanctity of Human Life Act, which Ryan co-sponsored, would have enshrined the notion that life begins at fertilization in federal law, thus criminalizing in vitro fertilization—the process of creating an embryo outside of a woman's womb. In IVF, doctors typically create multiple embryos and then only implant the healthiest ones in the woman. Some of them stick and become babies, and some don't. The embryos that don't make it to the womb are either frozen for later use or destroyed. The Sanctity of Human Life Act, if passed, would make all those embryos "people" in the legal sense, so if they aren't used or don't become babies after being implanted, they would essentially become murder victims under the law." (Mencimer 2012)
(Mencimer 2012) "In the more than 30 years since the world's first "test-tube baby," IVF has become a fairly common procedure and a lifeline to many infertile couples, Democrat and Republican, despite some of the thorny moral issues involved in the process. Some 60,000 babies every year are born thanks to IVF. Infertility is thought to affect some 10 to 15 percent of all couples in the US—especially those upper-class professionals who delay childbearing until their late 30s and early 40s. Infertility, in fact, is such a bipartisan problem that no fewer than three of Mitt Romney's own children have relied on the procedure to produce some of his 18 grandchildren."
Ryan has made attempts this week to trivialize women's issues concerning abortion: "Paul Ryan gave his first interview in Pennsylvania to CBS Pittsburgh, in which he alleged that women won’t fall for the President’s attempt to distract the voters with “side issues” regarding Ryan’s positions on rape, which align closely with Republican Representative Todd Akin’s views." (Jones 2012) (Marcotte 2012)
The GOP Platform conference, as seen on CSPAN now includes a ban on all abortions that makes no exceptions for cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life. Combined with "The Sanctity of Human Life Act" sponsored by Ryan (which is in total agreement with the platform stance), this truly shows their intent. And it's not just Akin or Ryan. (Granderson 2012)
"GOP leaders adopted a party platform on Tuesday that calls for a constitutional amendment protecting 'human life' but does not say whether exceptions should be allowed in cases of rape and incest. According to a plank adopted by a 112-member Republican committee meeting here, an 'unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life that cannot be infringed.' The platform also calls for legislation recognizing the rights of unborn children under the 14th Amendment." (Helderman 2012)
"Belief trumps fact not only among the Tea Party faithful but a large portion of the population. Belief is simpler, easier, faster. When believers try to find facts to stabilize their beliefs, they have started down a road that leads ultimately nowhere. The best we can do is make fun of them the way Gail Collins does so beautifully. There is no arguing with a believer who scorns science as a source of truth. Faith is blind and always will be. Faith always turns to the past for wisdom, never to the hard work of real research, which is generally pointed in the direction of the unknown, of the future. It deifies ancestors like Founding Fathers and chisels wisdom in stone. Faith is the opposite of thought. "God Bless America" and" In God We Trust" are expressions that America uses to shield itself from truth, that it wraps itself in for warmth and ends up suffocating the very freedom it so cherishes." (Collins 2012)
Romney, for his part, has begged off and on at once defending, then standing on his business experience when the political conversation finally gives him some breathing room to speak about the economy, but not to his liking:
"Acedia, a precusor to sloth. has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do in terms of spiritual laziness. By this definition, evil exists when good men fail to act. It is this slothful inability to make decisions that leads baroque tragic heroes to passively accept their fate, rather than resisting. apathy was considered a refusal to help others in time of need." (Wikipedia 2012)
"And so there’s a local millionaire who is a I guess a strip club and like sex toy mogul [Joe Redner]. He’s very well known for being a political firebrand in the area, and he just actually kind of approached people in Occupy Tampa and said, "You know, I want you guys to keep doing what you’re doing but you know I don’t want you guys to get beat up anymore, so I own a private park in this West Tampa neighborhood and I want you to stay there with my permission." It’s privately owned but it’s open to the public, and he said that people could stay there and continue doing what we’re doing, and that’s been what’s happening the last few months. And I think he really – I haven’t – I saw him recently at a city council. I haven’t talked to him too much, but he had seemed to have expressed a lot interest in specifically having this park available during the RNC. I think that’s kind of something he maybe had in mind all along with this." (Strether 2012)
Perhaps he's wishing to perform atonement, an also central concept of Mormonism.
"The only thing that could get us to call things off is if the Republicans leave town,' said Jared Hamil, spokesman for Monday's Coalition to March on the RNC. The Coalition March, the largest permitted protest, promised to draw more than 5,000 people for a march through downtown. 'People are already here and they're still arriving,' Hamil said. 'The march will go on, rain or shine.' Tara Colon, a protester at the "Romneyville" encampment of pink tents behind the Army Navy Surplus Market on N Tampa Street, said people there will see how bad it gets before deciding to stage protests. But other members of the camp seemed emboldened. 'That leaves the convention center open for us,' John Penley said. 'That's where we plan to go." (Thalji, Bill Varian and Steve Bousquet 2012)
"That’s why it always baffles me when I hear Christians say, 'We aren’t to be involved in the things of this world.' That’s just not right." (Toy 2012) I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, maybe, but not with as much conviction. Perhaps.
"Belief trumps fact not only among the Tea Party faithful but a large portion of the population. Belief is simpler, easier, faster. When believers try to find facts to stabilize their beliefs, they have started down a road that leads ultimately nowhere. The best we can do is make fun of them the way Gail Collins does so beautifully. There is no arguing with a believer who scorns science as a source of truth. Faith is blind and always will be. Faith always turns to the past for wisdom, never to the hard work of real research, which is generally pointed in the direction of the unknown, of the future. It deifies ancestors like Founding Fathers and chisels wisdom in stone. Faith is the opposite of thought. "God Bless America" and" In God We Trust" are expressions that America uses to shield itself from truth, that it wraps itself in for warmth and ends up suffocating the very freedom it so cherishes." (Collins 2012)
Romney, for his part, has begged off and on at once defending, then standing on his business experience when the political conversation finally gives him some breathing room to speak about the economy, but not to his liking:
"Acedia, a precusor to sloth. has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do in terms of spiritual laziness. By this definition, evil exists when good men fail to act. It is this slothful inability to make decisions that leads baroque tragic heroes to passively accept their fate, rather than resisting. apathy was considered a refusal to help others in time of need." (Wikipedia 2012)
"And so there’s a local millionaire who is a I guess a strip club and like sex toy mogul [Joe Redner]. He’s very well known for being a political firebrand in the area, and he just actually kind of approached people in Occupy Tampa and said, "You know, I want you guys to keep doing what you’re doing but you know I don’t want you guys to get beat up anymore, so I own a private park in this West Tampa neighborhood and I want you to stay there with my permission." It’s privately owned but it’s open to the public, and he said that people could stay there and continue doing what we’re doing, and that’s been what’s happening the last few months. And I think he really – I haven’t – I saw him recently at a city council. I haven’t talked to him too much, but he had seemed to have expressed a lot interest in specifically having this park available during the RNC. I think that’s kind of something he maybe had in mind all along with this." (Strether 2012)
Perhaps he's wishing to perform atonement, an also central concept of Mormonism.
"The only thing that could get us to call things off is if the Republicans leave town,' said Jared Hamil, spokesman for Monday's Coalition to March on the RNC. The Coalition March, the largest permitted protest, promised to draw more than 5,000 people for a march through downtown. 'People are already here and they're still arriving,' Hamil said. 'The march will go on, rain or shine.' Tara Colon, a protester at the "Romneyville" encampment of pink tents behind the Army Navy Surplus Market on N Tampa Street, said people there will see how bad it gets before deciding to stage protests. But other members of the camp seemed emboldened. 'That leaves the convention center open for us,' John Penley said. 'That's where we plan to go." (Thalji, Bill Varian and Steve Bousquet 2012)
"That’s why it always baffles me when I hear Christians say, 'We aren’t to be involved in the things of this world.' That’s just not right." (Toy 2012) I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, maybe, but not with as much conviction. Perhaps.
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