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$15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Duane Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 June, 2007 |
The Voice of
Sanity
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org
e-mail:
secularhmnst@aol.com |
THE LEGACY OF
JERRY FALWELL
The
May 28th issue of TIME has an essay about the passing of Jerry
Falwell and his impact on the marriage of religion and politics in America that
is both educational and instructional.
During an interview earlier this year, Falwell stated he had been
praying to God to grant him an additional twenty years of life to achieve his
goals for America. One could interpret
his untimely demise as a clear and unequivocal response to his prayers.
Falwell
founded the now defunct Moral Majority and became a very powerful political
figure, taking on every social and political issue from feminism to abortion. He claimed in 1958 that God intended blacks
to serve whites and more recently that a purse carrying Teletubby was intended
to be a gay model for our children.
The
essay compares Falwell to the new breed of progressive evangelists like Rick
Warren and Jim Wallis that are more focused on solving the problems of the
world like AIDS, hunger, war and poverty than claiming that God allowed 9/11 to
occur because America embraced a culture that includes gays, feminists and the
ACLU. The simple fact is that Falwell,
Pat Robertson and others like them are becoming increasingly irrelevant in a
complex and diverse world.
Falwell
was the perfect model of the strong male leader that we see in every aspect of
our lives and in virtually every society in the world. These leaders have all the answers, the
TRUTH, the simplistic solutions to every problem at the right time and
place. That answer is always the same,
just do as I say, don’t try to think for yourself or question because I get my
authority and knowledge from the Supreme Creator. If you oppose or question my
decisions, you question the Supreme Creator. History has repeatedly shown us
the punishment for questioning the Supreme Creator.
If
we are looking for someone to blame for the current sad state of the world, we
collectively need to look at ourselves in a mirror. Our genetic, social and cultural histories have molded the vast
majority of us into individuals who have a need to look up to a few people we
consider “leaders” to guide our lives, and to look down on the masses below us,
confirming our superior position in the social pecking order. Before modernity,
globalization and 24 hour instant news we only had to deal with the people in
our own band, tribe or nation. Now we
have to deal with the diverse lives and issues of 6.5 billion people on a globe
that seems to shrink every day. The
exponential rate of change in our world is increasingly at odds with our basic
human nature that needs some degree of economic and social stability, and it
does not look like we are going to see any reduction in the rate of change in
the near future.
In
our own country our failure to vote in substantial numbers is the major barrier
we face in trying to improve the participation in our democratic process. In the recent French elections 86% of the
population voted. Compare this to the
46% vote in the 2006 US elections, an election that changed the majority in
Congress from Republican to Democrat.
As
secular humanists we need to encourage individuals to take more responsibility
for their own lives and actions, to reject dogmatic, simplistic solutions to
issues and problems that we know are complex and to be strong supporters of
basic human rights for everyone. We need to build bridges to the moderate
religious and spiritual community with which we have common goals and, above
all, support the Constitution of the United States and the concept of
separation of church and state.
ONE
REASON FOR HIGH GAS PRICES
We are told that the current high gas price is not
due to the cost of crude oil, but to the lack of refining capacity. The available refineries are working as hard
as they can, but some are out of production due to maintenance, breakdowns,
etc. A CNN report this week told of the fourth largest refinery in the world on
Grand Bahama Island that is “mothballed; that is, shut down and taken out of
production
It turns out that this refinery, called BORCO
(Bahamas Oil Refining Company), used to be owned by one of the American oil
giants, Chevron, in the 1990s but it was sold during the “oil glut” of the same
period when gas prices were at historic lows. The new owners of the refinery
promptly shut it down and mothballed it, and there it sits today, only a few
miles off the Florida coast, refining not a single barrel of crude oil into
gasoline and other products.
Who are the new owners? None other that the Venezuelan state owned oil company that also
owes 100% of CITGO. Venezuela has at least 80 billion barrels of heavy crude
oil reserves and substantial reserves of natural gas. If the President of
Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, were to order the BORCO refinery to be placed back into
production the additional gasoline supply would certainly cause the price of
gasoline to decline to some degree.
But, of course, he would have to want the prices to fall, and this is
contrary to the short-term interests of his country and his regime.
The good news is that some mothballed refineries are
in the process of being re-started, but the cost and environmental problems
associated with building new refineries probably will preclude any new
construction in the USA.
IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE:
SOLUTION OR RUSE?
Critics of every persuasion are challenging the
recent Republican/Democratic compromise solution to the immigration
crisis. Illegal immigrants fear that
the part of the plan that requires them to pay a $5,000 fine, obtain a “Z” visa
and leave the country to obtain a permanent visa are just a trick to get them
to permanently return to their native countries. Although the plan guarantees their right to return to the US, the
details are not clear as to how long they will have to be out of the US before
being allowed to return.
They also point out the difficulty of saving for the
$5,000 fine when they are already working at very low wages. CNN had a feature
on an illegal Mexican worker, his wife and two children living in NYC. The husband works as a clerk in a wine store
and makes about $400 per week. He bikes
to work and he and his family appear to be excellent candidates for citizenship. Even if he could save the $5,000 (($10,000
for him and his wife), who would support his family while he returns to Mexico
to wait for his permanent visa and be allowed to return to NYC? His wife says that she and the kids would
have to go with him when he returns to Mexico, assuming they could raise the
$10,000. They consider the plan a ruse
to get them to go back to Mexico and, hopefully, never return to the US.
Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo
(R-CO) agrees that the compromise has little chance of being a comprehensive
solution to the immigration problem and supports a Federal law based on the
Colorado law that punishes employers who hire illegal immigrants. He claims that illegal immigrants in
Colorado are returning to their native countries because strict enforcement of
the new law is drying up the job market for them. There is a Federal law on the
books that could accomplish the same result if it were consistently enforced.
A major concern is that if it appears the compromise
has a good chance of becoming Federal law there will be a flood of illegal
immigrants rushing to get into the US before the law becomes effective,
substantially increasing the size of the illegal population.
The compromise plan also includes major spending to
improve border security; fences, more border patrol agents and high-tech
security systems that would hopefully ensure that we will not have the same
immigration crisis occur again in future years. My personal opinion is that we will not solve the problem in any
meaningful way, but time will tell.
THE NUMBER OF THE WEALTHY
INCREASE
MSN Money
reports that the number of Americans with a net worth of $5 million or greater
has quintupled to 930,000 in the past ten years. In 2004 slightly over 1.3 million taxpayers were in the top 1% of
taxpayers with a minimum income of about $350,000 that year. The average income for the top 1% in 2004
was about $1 million. Most of the recently wealthy made their money by starting
their own businesses. The link to the full article is posted below.
In another report, the US population of 300 million
now includes 100 million minority citizens. This means that about 67% of the
population is what is traditional referred to as “white”, while 33% are
classified as minorities.
May/June Meeting.
The USCSH
combined May/June meeting will be on Sunday, June 3rd at 5 p.m. at the home of
Elaine and Joe Norwood. The Norwood’s live at 16 Oakleaf Rd. in Greenville. For
directions and a suggestion what to bring to the dinner, please call Elaine or
Joe at 268-1889. The Host will furnish the main dish and all eating utensils.
This will be out last meeting until our annual picnic in August. Hope to see
everyone there!
What?
May/June meeting
Where?
Joe/Elaine Norwood's home
Date? June 3rd.
Time? 5 p.m.
Brunch
Our next brunch
will be on August 11th at a place to be announced.