Sunday, September 08, 2019



A Papal bigot

I have lived through a number of papacies and saw all as good and holy men -- until this one.  He is just an empty-headed Leftist, as shallow as a birdbath.  He lacks even basic prudence -- once a hallmark of Popes.  He clearly no longer is interested in the church's basic goal -- saving souls.  Instead of reaching out to all men, he is a pastor to Leftists only

Think of the uproar if Donald Trump tweeted that it was an honour to be attacked by Argentinians. Pope Francis’s comment that “it’s an honour that Americans attack me’’ has raised the ire of Christians in the US and the Anglosphere.

He made the throwaway remark to journalists aboard the Papal flight to Mozambique on Wednesday, when asked about a new book by Nicolas Seneze, Rome correspondent for the French Catholic daily newspaper, La Croix.

The book claims wealthy, conservative Catholics have stepped into the vacuum of authority left by sex abuse scandals in the US. The hostility fanned by Francis’s comment, widely reported in church media, is a far cry from the close friendship between Saint John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, that underpinned the demise of eastern European Communism 30 years ago.

Francis also upset US Catholics last week by omitting American prelates leading major archdioceses from his latest list of new cardinals.

Applaud it or abhor it, the list of 10 new voting cardinals was a political masterstroke for a Pontiff determined to drive the church further out to the green-Left.

Regardless of their theological merits, or lack of them, a question being hotly debated in church circles, the political and social sympathies of many of the new “red hats’’ are clear.

Their support for a range of causes, including feminist and LGBTI theology, open borders and free flowing immigration, anti-capitalism, environmentalism and dialogue with Islam are well established. The appointments will make the green-left direction Francis has imposed on the church harder to reverse in future.

As in his five previous consistories, Francis has again ignored the leaders of major archdioceses traditionally led by cardinals. These include Paris, Los Angeles (the largest Catholic city in the US), Philadelphia, Turin and Venice, the city that produced three 20th century popes. This is the second consistory in a row where no US clerics were included.

The new cardinals will receive their red hats on October 5, on the eve of the controversial Amazonian synod, which will focus on the environment, indigenous spirituality and the ordination of mature married men to the priesthood.

No general meeting of cardinals will be held to coincide with the consistory, which would have been almost unprecedented under previous popes. Refusing to bring the College of Cardinals together, however, has been Francis’s practice for five years.

In recent months, two experienced cardinals, both sacked from senior Vatican jobs by Francis — Raymond Burke from the US and Gerhard Mueller from Germany — have told The Australian that the College of Cardinals is in a “very bad way’’ because it was never allowed it to meet. In separate interviews, both men said that many of those who would eventually elect Francis’s successor had never met, which would make voting problematic.

Post consistory, the College of Cardinals will comprise a majority of voting members, 67, chosen by Francis, with 42 appointed by Benedict XVI and 19 by Saint John Paul II.

The incoming voting cardinals include two Jesuits. One, Archbishop Jean-Claude Höllerich of Luxembourg, recently lamented the “disgrace’’ of “populist’’ politicians “exploiting’’ the public’s fears over immigration, security and Islam. His fellow Jesuit, Czechoslovakian-born Father Michael Czerny, who jumps several ranks moving from priest to caridnal, is a Vatican official specialising in migrants, refugees, social justice and the environment.

Another curial official promoted, Spanish Bishop Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue was also on the list. Bishop Ayuso, an Arab speaker was one of the authors of the controversial “Chrislam’’ document signed in February by Francis and Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque. It said “pluralism and the diversity of religions” are “willed by God in His wisdom”. That claim sparked a bitter war of words between two German cardinals, who hurled accusations about “promoting schism’’ and an “anti-Christ’’ influence in current debates.

Vatican librarian and archivist, Archbishop José Tolentino de Mendonça, was also on the list of new cardinals. The Portuguese prelate, selected to preach Francis’s Lenten retreat last year, is the author of an introduction to a book on feminist theology by Spanish nun Sister Maria Teresa Forcada. Dubbed “Europe’s most radical nun’’ by the BBC, she is anti-capitalist, pro-female ordination and pro-choice as regards abortion. In his introduction, the archbishop praised her lack of “dogmatic ties’’ and rejection of “rigid and codified rules’’.

In a positive move for Australia’s largest northern neighbour, Francis has promoted the Archbishop of Jakarta, Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, to the College of Cardinals. He is a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The promotion of Italian archbishop Matteo Zuppi, warmly regarded as a “priest of the streets” for his outreach to the elderly, immigrants, gypsies and drug addicts was widely welcomed in Italy. Another appointee, Cuban archbishop Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez of Havana is more political, insisting he does not want capitalism to come to Cuba, but favours “a progressing socialism”.

SOURCE 






Criminologists Mislead Us

Walter E. Williams

John Paul Wright, professor at University of Cincinnati, and Matthew DeLisi, professor at Iowa State University, have penned a powerful article titled “What Criminologists Don’t Say, and Why,” in City Journal, Summer 2017. There is significant bias among criminologists.

The reason for that bias is that political leanings of academic criminologists are liberal. Liberal criminologists outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 30-to-1. Ideology almost perfectly predicts the position of criminologists on issues from gun control to capital punishment to harsh sentencing.

Liberal criminologists march in step for gun control, oppose punitive prison sentences, and are vehemently against the death penalty.

In 2012, the National Academy of Sciences commissioned a study on the growth of incarceration. It showed that from 1928 until 1960, crime rates rose slowly each year. After the 1960s, crime rates exploded to unprecedented levels of violence until the 1990s.

Prior to 1980, only 40% of individuals arrested for murder were sentenced to prison and those that were served an average of five years. In 1981, less than 10% of those arrested for sexual assault were sentenced to prison. Those who were sentenced served an average of 3.4 years.

Liberal criminologists probably believe that light sentencing for murderers and rapists is just.

If criminologists have the guts to even talk about a race-crime connection, it’s behind closed doors and in guarded language. Any discussion about race and crime sets one up for accusations of racism and that can mean the destruction of one’s professional career.

Wright and DeLisi say that liberal criminologists avoid discussing even explicit racist examples of black-on-white crime such as flash-mob assaults, “polar bear hunting,” and the “knockout game.” These are cases where black youth seek out white people to physically attack.

According to Wright and DeLisi:

Disproportionate black involvement in violent crime represents the elephant in the room amid the current controversy over policing in the United States. Homicide numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-2005 indicate that young African American males account for homicide victims at levels that are ten to 20 times greater than their proportion of the population and account for homicide offenders at levels that are 15 to 35 times greater than their proportion of the population. The black-white gap in armed-robbery offending has historically ranged between 10 to 1 and 15 to 1. For all racial groups, violent crime is strongly intraracial, and the intraracial dynamic is most pronounced among blacks.

That means the primary victims of black crime are other black people. In more than 90% of homicides, for example, both the victim and the perpetrator are black.

Between 1991 and 2017, the nationwide violent crime rate fell from 758 cases to 382 cases per 100,000 people. Despite the evidence that higher incarceration reduces crime rates, many criminologists argue that “mass incarceration” has actually “took minority men out of their neighborhoods, stripped them of voting rights, destabilized families, and sapped already-paltry economic resources from struggling communities.”

Wright and DeLisi say that “Such claims could seem plausible only if one believes—contrary to evidence and common sense—that career criminals contribute positively to their neighborhoods, enjoy stable and functional families, vote, and work. What they did, in reality, was to prey on their neighbors.”

Crime is a major problem for the black community. But in addition to incarcerating those who prey on the black community, what can be done?

The answer is easy, though implementation poses a challenge. We should re-adopt the values and practices of our ancestors.

Black families of yesteryear were mainly two-parent and stable, even during slavery. Black people didn’t tolerate property destruction. There were few school fights. Disrespect and assaults on teachers were virtually unknown. These are now all too common.

The strong character of black people is responsible for the great progress made from emancipation to today. Find a 70-, 80-, or 90-year-old black person and ask him whether today’s conduct among black youth would have been tolerated yesteryear.

I guarantee you that no will be their answer.

SOURCE 






WaPo Defends Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads: They're Laborers Too!

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Day is focused on "the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." As I wrote yesterday, it's a ridiculous holiday and Marxist on top of it. If there's one holiday we should get rid of, it's this one.

Having said that, the Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham makes a strong case for actually expanding Labor Day to focus on more "workers": "the uncompensated labor of moms and dads whose primary occupation is child-rearing and managing their households." He writes:

As any stay-at-home parent will tell you, there’s little down time. There’s the obvious work of caring for a child, which is particularly intensive in the years before he or she starts school. But the job also typically requires maintaining a household, fulfilling a host of duties such as cleaning, shopping, meal prep and managing the family’s finances and schedules. It’s not uncommon, either, for stay-at-home parents to take on elder-care duties when relatives become infirm.
Since the Department of Labor focuses on workers' contributions to the economy, however, Ingraham finds it important to try and calculate how much stay-at-home moms and dads add:

In Washington, for instance, infant care averages out to about $24,000 per year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. The average cost for a year of day care for a 4-year-old is about $19,122. Multiply those figures by the number of kids in the home and you get a pretty good sense of the economic value of stay-at-home parenting.
And that's not all. As he also explains, several studies have found that there are significant benefits for children who spend more time with their parents, "especially for children in two-parent, middle-income households." Happy children often grow up to be happy and productive adults. And happy adults add significantly to the economy. Yay!

So? Let's include stay-at-home moms and dads in the Labor Day festivities?

No. As I argued yesterday, let's get rid of Labor Day altogether. There's no need for such a Marxist holiday in a free, capitalist country.

Having a day dedicated to the moms and dads who choose to stay at home to take care of their kids, however? Now that's a marvelous idea!

SOURCE 






In Boston, activists march to protest companies doing business with ICE

These people have got it ass-backwards to see ICE detention centres as akin to Nazi concentration camps.  Under Hitler, people were LEAVING Germany, not flocking to come in.  Illegals are VOLUNTARILY risking detention when they cross the border.  Nobody volunteered for Hitler's camps

A spirited group of hundreds of Jewish activists and their allies marched from downtown Boston to Amazon’s Cambridge office Thursday evening, gathering to protest private companies doing business with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Never again means abolish ICE,” the protesters chanted as they walked past rush hour commuters and cars stopped in their tracks.

“I was just following orders,” read one sign. “Close the camps,” read others.

Many wore white because it is a color of mourning, said Ari Fertig, one of the organizers. A woman near the front blew a shofar, a ram’s horn that will be used in High Holiday services this month, as the crowd inched forward from the New England Holocaust Memorial in the center of the city.

Twelve people were arrested on trespassing charges by Cambridge police after sitting down in the lobby of the Amazon offices following the march. Each of the arrested protesters was led out a back door in plastic ties, while other demonstrators stood outside the glass lobby doors, chanting their support and filming the scene on their phones.

The protest was planned by Never Again Action, a nationwide group of Jewish activists that formed about two months ago. Their first protest in Boston in early July shut down traffic during rush hour to protest immigration detention in the city. In August, while the group was protesting in front of a detention center in Rhode Island, a captain at the prison allegedly drove his truck into the crowd. Never Again Action activists have also led protests in cities around the country, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore.

Their main rallying cry, “close the camps,” draws on the language of concentration camps to denounce migrant camps at the US border, which lawmakers and lawyers have described as overcrowded, squalid, and inhumane.

Of course, those border camps were more than 2,300 miles away from those who marched Thursday evening. But the activists said their goal was to make Bostonians realize that the issue of immigrant detention is not confined to the border. Disruption — blocking traffic, chanting, singing, and potentially getting arrested — is part of the point.

As of 5:40 p.m., aerial news footage of the demonstration showed dozens of marchers blocking traffic near the holocaust memorial. The march snarled traffic on the mile-and-a-half route to Amazon’s office located a short walk away from the Kendall T stop.

Protesters filled the roadway into Cambridge on the Longfellow Bridge shortly after 6 p.m. Three police cars with blinking blue lights followed the crowds onto the otherwise empty bridge, which spans the Charles River, and a line of cars followed the police.

Participants with Never Again Action often refer to their own family histories, and the horror stories about the Holocaust that they learned in synagogue or Hebrew school, to explain why they are in the streets.

“I really feel like this is the future of the Jewish people,” said Susan Abramson, rabbi at Temple Shalom Emeth in Burlington. She leads monthly rallies against ICE and had come to learn from the young group about how to “up the ante” at her own community’s protests.

“Our businesses here in Boston are actively collaborating with ICE,” said Maya Yair, 27, one of the organizers of the march. “This is no time for business as usual.” She said she hoped the public pressure from the march would make local businesses “feel people are watching.”

The protest ended at Amazon’s office, where activists filed into the lobby of the office building chanting “The whole world is watching!” They dropped a banner next to the building reading, “Never Again means # No Tech for ICE” and told the crowd about the history of IBM’s collaboration with the German government during World War II.

“Private companies and tech companies need to stop collaborating with ICE,” said Elizabeth Weinbloom, a Somerville resident.

Boston resident Ben Lorber said this was not the time “to be on the sidelines.”

“As a Jewish person, we’ve seen this before. I had ancestors killed in the Holocaust. We feel this in our bones,” he said. “We need to mobilize.”

The activists chose to march to the Amazon office because, they say, the company makes it easier for ICE to detain and deport immigrants. In June 2018, Amazon employees wrote a letter to company executives detailing their own concerns about the company’s relationship with ICE. The employees specifically asked Amazon to cut ties with the data-mining company Palantir, which provides much of the technological backbone for ICE’s detention and deportations; Palantir runs on Amazon Web Services, according to the employees.

Last year, Amazon pitched its facial-recognition system to ICE officials as a way for the agency to target or identify immigrants, according to The Washington Post.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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