Month: March 2011

Farrakhan on the Jews

Current Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan
What a friend he has in Muammar

There he goes again:

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said on Tuesday that Jews and Zionists are trying to push the US into war and that Zionists dominate the US government and banks.

Farrakhan, 77, made the comments at the Nation of Islams annual meeting near Chicago.

His friend Muammar:

President Obama, Farrakhan said, if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Gaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons, as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons… Im warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves.

Farrakhan called Muammar Gaddafi my brother and my friend.

It’s a matter of religious belief:

Some of you think that Im just somebody whos got something out for the Jewish people, Farrakhan said. Youre stupid.

Do you think I would waste my time if I did not think it was important for you to know Satan? My job is to pull the cover off of Satan so that he will never deceive you and the people of the world again.

Anti-Defamation League response:

ADL National Director Abe Foxman said in response that, Anti-Semitism has suffused the Nation of Islams message, and Farrakhan is the standard bearer and bigot in chief… Perhaps what’s more disturbing is that despite his anti-Semitic rants, he has not been made a pariah in his own community. What does it take for him to stop being a pied piper of hatred?

For starters, Fr. Michael Pfleger could disown him. Won’t happen, of course. What a reflection on Pfleger is his friendship with and endorsement of Farrakhan, including his anti-semitism. What a disgrace.

Public unions: a way to buy jobs

Rev. Robert Sirico quotes John Paul II in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
“Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or have too close links with them.”
 
Contrast that with what the Wisconsin bishops’ lobbyist said about what the bishops think about teachers’ and other public unions:
The bishops are merely reminding everybody of the teaching of the Church [about] the dignity of work and the appropriate place for unions without giving them carte blanche to have everything they want. [italics mine]
The dignity of work is not the point here.  
 
Fr. Sirico:
Generally speaking, the long history of unions has been bound up with the right of free association. So far as I can tell, the current practice of public-sector union organizing has little or nothing to do with this principle, so it is right and proper that Catholic social teaching should also recognize this.
Free association, a human right.  “But the driving force behind the budgetary move has nothing to do with human rights, unless one considers the rights of Wisconsin taxpayers,” says Sirico.  “It is nearly impossible for anyone to work for the public sector without being a member” and paying dues.
 
Teachers vs unions
Some do not like that idea.
But freedom of association has worked against unionization.  Unions could not bribe employers, but they could pay into campaign funds and get similar results from legislators and governors and presidents.  Unions became office-seekers’ and -holders’ financiers.  These politicos in turn had jobs to offer — public service jobs, where membership was not the point, dues were.
 
Sirico closes:
The bias toward unions in Catholic social teaching is rooted in a perception that unions fulfill certain moral conditions. When they fail to do so, the application of moral teaching can change. There is no a priori reason to back every union demand and no reason for Catholics to feel under any doctrinal obligation to do so.
As he said earlier in the column,
Just because something is called a union does not make it automatically good and moral. Essential considerations of justice and freedom must be in place.
Once in a Newspaper Guild meeting, I said we should support the delivery truck drivers if they had a good case and was accused of being a Jesuit.  Worst thing my union brother could think of at the moment, I guess.
 
His point: this was no time to bring up rightness of demands.  Solidarity was at issue.  Fr. Sirico is making that point.  Just because you support freedom of association does not mean you are with the public unions at a time of dreadful financial crisis.
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“Be happy, not gay” can be said in school!

Be happy, be vocal. Get it off your chest by putting it on your chest. Now it can be done at (Dist. 204, Neuqua) Valley High, thanks to pursuit of the matter in the courts by an inadequately celebrated free-speech protector, Alliance Defense Fund.

Very yucky business, this quelling of dissent. Rampant among us, as in (liberal) Oak Park, where gays & lesbians squelched the reverend who wanted to discuss changing from g&l to straight. Gays & L’s, feeling their oats in our fair village, put their feet down, and the guy lost his venue. Fascist behavior, I say.

High Court Rules in Favor of Funeral Protesters – WSJ.com

Associate Justice Samuel Alito acknowledges hi...
The one on the right dissented

Like many others, I went right to the article to see who dissented. It was Alito, whose phrase “verbal assault” is crucial, in this case “vicious,” which is also crucial, I’m sure. Which would leave courts the job of deciding what’s an assault and what’s vicious, and that could be knotty indeed. I speak as a newspaper reader, period, will be looking for other comments, needless to say.