Showing posts with label Anti Catholic Progressives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti Catholic Progressives. Show all posts

Saturday, November 02, 2019

Free People, or Helots. Hoosiers are Free People, for Now.



like donkeys suffering under heavy loads,
by painful force compelled to bring their masters half
of all the produce that the soil brought forth.
(Tyrtaeus West Fragment 6, trans. West)


Description

Helots - The helots were a subjugated population group that formed the main population of Laconia and Messenia, the territory controlled by Sparta. 
noun
  1. a member of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, intermediate in status between slaves and citizens.
    • a serf or slave.


I have been using this term to describe people of the middle class in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois for a number of years,   In ancient Sparta, Helots were the middle class, sandwiched between the upper class and slaves as we know the term. 

In Chicago during my life time (1952-2018) there, I watched the robust American middle/working class diminish, shrink and all but vanish from Cook County.   The upper classes and their stooges ( some journalists, activists, too many labor unions, private charities) have done everything to get people who pay taxes, work for a living and live happy lives get the Hell out of Dodge. 

A few weeks ago, one of the Oligarchy’s stooges with Chicago Sun Times  wrote a piece bewailing the departure of the black middle class from Chicago and positing the possibility of its return.   The stooges of Oligarchy have made Race the basis of everything, but the facts confound this lie.  The Black Middle Class is no different from the Polish, Swedish, Greek, Lithuanian, Bohemian, Mexican, Jewish and Italian middle class.  The only ethnic demographic of the Middle Class that does not get it is the Irish.

As a group the Irish serve the oligarchy with regularity and lick-spittle lock-step for the likes of Pat Quinn, Richie Daley, Toni Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot and JB Pritzker like no other.  

This is odd because the Irish were once in the forefront of creating the middle class.  My Grandfather was. a hairy pawed union slugger in the stock yards who helped form one of the most powerful and professional skilled trades unions in Illinois.  He went from coal heaver, to operating engineer, to union official always with a job in the trade.  He was a radical Big Jim Larkin off-the-boat bog-trotter in 1912, who eventually owned a huge brick bungalow for his wife and thirteen children at 7535 S. Marshfield, saw his grandson become a Norte Dame standout and Houston Oiler, but was as equally proud of that man’s younger brother who won an ITT fellowship in engineering design, because merit was a path out of the working class.  All of his 75 grandchildren became solidly middle class citizens. Those blue collar dreams came true in the early 1960’s. 

That was when John F. Kennedy became President and starred down the Communists in Berlin, Vietnam and Cuba.  Today, JFK would be excoriated as a Red-baiting, anti-abortion, Catholic deplorable. JFK would be a helot today.   Our world hates pugnacious people with moral centers.  The Fighting Irish is a logo.  Bishop Shiel is forgotten and the doughy mush Monsignor Jack Egan touted as a working class hero.  Today, a Pastor Michael Pfleger is treated with deference, if not the contempt that he works so very hard to elicit. 

The Irish tend to be generous to a fault, tribally loyal and willing to be counted.  Those same gifts allowed the Irish as a group to be co-opted by people and indeologies that detest them to the marrow.  Hyde Park buried Bridgeport between 1972 and the Progressive Hegemony that controls Illinois.  Abner Mikva and Dr. Quentin Young co-operated with City Hall and County Building and roped in the likes of Tom Hynes, Neil Hartigan and the young Daleys.  The Media, 501(c) # Fortunes and IVI-Good Government cache no longer assaulted The Machine. 

Mike Madigan understood that Ward power was over and played cent-field with Hyde Park.  The Irish fought no one and became most congenial. 

The Congenial Irish took the path of least resistance and all but erased the verbal fighting from their political, religious and moral lexicon.  The Irish got behind Neil Hartigan and went soft on abortion to the point that a mushy mope like Senator Dick Durbin walks publicly in a green sash. 

The Irish of the tail-end of the 20th Century get behind “great gals and guys” who take the coin, the endorsement and condescension of people who detest everything about being Irish. 

As such, huge voting blocks in neighborhoods in the 19th Ward have helped put shackles on the Irish and any ethnic group that marries into their flabby embrace. 

The Irish retain political influence in Cook County and Illinois because the Irish, as a group, go-along with the great enthusiasm.  

As a result, the middle class is being eliminated.  Why?  The middle class is anathema to the Oligarchy who blend Marxism with kleptomania. 

Cook County is Animal Farm.  Pigs get fat and everyone else gets slaughtered. 

Shunning, slogans, group hate and the daffy doings of the Bears and Cubbies numb middle class families  that still remain within the borders of the City and the State.  Like blacks and sharecroppers in the post-Reconstruction American South, the middle class suffer the same burdens hoisted upon their backs by Richie Daleys, Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Rauner and now the completely supine Lori Lightfoot. 

Individuals finally get a bellyful. I planned to move out of Illinois and found a home in Michigan City, Indiana.   Alas, my children will continue to live in Illinois.  

All three were born outside of Cook County, but all three love being close to cousins, aunts and uncles and grandma, as did I. 

I can visit.  They own homes.

Hoosiers have resisted the harness.  The news papers have no reliable stooges, but report on public affairs and actually have local high school sports data and stories,  One might mark the end of freedom in Illinois from the time that the sports pages became propaganda for lovable losers and the milquetoasts of the Midway,

More significantly, the newspapers are independent and a MEDIA.  There are no self-absorbed stooges like Eric Zorn, Fran Spielman, Carol Marin, Michael Sneed, Rex Hupke, or the appalling Mary Schmich.


Politically, there is not a huge block of Woke Millennial Irish to wrap Progressive initiatives like abortion in corned beef and cabbage. 


The editorial boards are not lickspittles for City Hall.  In fact, today’s. headline screams this: 


 La PORTE – Just days before the election, felony charges were filed against Michigan City Mayor Ron Meer for his actions following the arrest of his stepson earlier this month, but no judge has yet agreed to conduct a probable cause hearing.Court records show that on Wednesday – under seal – the La Porte County Prosecutor's Office charged Meer with one felony count of official misconduct; five felony counts of intimidation; and two misdemeanor counts of false informing resulting in substantial hindrance to law enforcement.
The charges were initially filed in Superior Court 4, but Judge Greta Stirling Friedman recused herself from "even finding probable cause on the basis that, among other reasons, the Judge's spouse, whose employment caused him to be included on an email chain and could potentially lead to his being a witness in this matter," according to court records.

No Bruce Dold, Chicago Tribune managing editor could spike the story.  No team of Yahoos like Mark Brown, Neil Steinberg, or Mary Mitchel could blare out distraction yarns of Racism, or Yellow Corn.

 Days before election Mayor Ron needs to gussie-up his resume.  I spoke with Michigan Citizens and some like what Mayor Meer has done for the downtown area and others said that he was jerk when they worked for him in City Government.   Everyone has a vote and it is not for barter.

I don’t have a dog in the fight and look forward to election day. 

Hoosiers are not helots - yet.   


Monday, June 29, 2015

Teaching in 2015 - Worm Grunting Until Convicted

H. L. Mencken Portrait
“The government I live under has been my enemy all my active life. When it has not been engaged in silencing me it has been engaged in robbing me. So far as I can recall I have never had any contact with it that was not an outrage on my dignity and an attack on my security.” HL Mencken

"That ability to impart knowledge . . . consists, first, of a natural talent for dealing with children, for getting into their minds, for putting things in a way that they can comprehend. And it consists, secondly, of a deep belief in the interest and importance of the thing taught, a concern about it amounting to a sort of passion. A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it—this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy. That is because there is enthusiasm in him, and because enthusiasm is almost as contagious as fear or the barber's itch." Henry Louis Mencken from  Prejudices: third series (publ. A. A. Knopf, 1922)

Henry Louis Mencken knew how to identify cant, insincerity, humbug, bigotry and sanctimony at the horizon.  He did not need to have it legislated before he could snap his galluses, gnaw on his stogy and shout to the helots, " Hey!  Rube! You're about to step in it for fair, Son!"

Being a fundamentally flawed human being, prone to vice but gifted with talents far above those of most mortals must have made the proud German American beer swilling genius feel like Casandra most days.

He could predict cultural disasters from any bar stool and, while amusing all and sundry, go unheeded.

Mencken stood at the dawn of American Progressive thought and shuddered. Research! Inquiry! Settled Science!  Foregone Conclusions and willful assumptions destroyed shared truth.

Americans ignored shared truth and swallowed data tossed by Academics whole and heartily.

From that magic  moment in 1876, Johns Hopkins University preened its purple feathers and waved proudly for inquiry over pedagogy America tumbled. The German architect of infant fascism, Alexander Humbolt, so impressed the Quaker bachelor

The University of Chicago, packed with Rockefeller spondulix, followed suit and the Academic Jackass eclipsed the pioneer, the innovator, the leader, the priest, the warrior, the athlete and genuine scholar in the America pulpit, bank line, battalion, playing field and imagination.

This past week, the United States Supreme Court wholly justified the very Germanic nonsense HL Mencken fought against his whole life.  Johns Hopskins is the core of this evil apple swallowed whole from the late 18th Century to this silly season.  Marriage ain't no more and ObamaCare is going to be as easy to avoid as taxes.

Mencken understood exactly where America was heading. As a very flawed man with some level of wit, I see the very same nightmare.

We are here, Henry!

A male and a female are matter for a court and future litigation.

A family is a group of people.

States rights are what have been agreed upon.

So teaching, especially in a Catholic school is now a dirtier job than Worm Grunting.

Two self-proclaimed American Catholics on the U.S. Supreme Court, Kennedy and Roberts, have effectively made teaching in a Catholic high school ( Catholic Universities long ago struck the flag) is about to become a very dangerous game; unless, of course,  the teacher  is cowed by the threatening realities of pitting shared truth against conveniently manufactured and very pliable doctrines.

I'll continue to grunt and sweat and dig up a few wormy triumphs in the classroom when students pick up on my enthusiasm for millennia of shared truths ( abortion is always murder, a bolt only goes into a nut, water boils at 212 and freezes at 32 degrees, Shakespeare is a genius and Toni Morrison writes stuff) - until the bracelets get slapped on.





Thursday, February 13, 2014

Progressive Hack and Armchair Theologian Pat Quinn Firmly Believes in Jane Addams Mother Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth

 
“That Christianity has to be revealed and embodied in the line of social progress is a corollary to the simple proposition, that man’s action is found in his social relationships in the way in which he connects with his fellows; that his motives for action are the zeal and affection with which he regards his fellows” Jane Addams
“I believe in taxes being based on ability to pay,” Quinn said. “I think that’s a principle as old as the bible. I think what we have to do in Illinois is have a fair system that also promotes economic growth.” Gov. Pat Quinn
 Governor Quinn firmly believes that decision about a woman's body should be made by her and her doctor. He supports a woman's right to privacy and choice without restriction as embodied in Roe v. Wade.
In accordance with his beliefs that healthcare should not be predicated on income, Governor Quinn supports legislation restoring abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan. In addition, he supports legislation to repeal Illinois' 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion Law.
Source: 2010 Gubernatorial website quinnforillinois.com, "Issues" , Nov 2, 2010



Pat Quinn goes to church and it happens to be a Catholic Church.  However, it his thoughts words and deeds are pure 19th Century First Church of the Darwinian House of Jane Addams - Secular Progressive Reformed. There are many of my coreligionists who chew swallow the bloody wafers, Girl Scout cookies and walking-around money from Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry without even a chaser, because they feel for women.  Feelings and intentions trump everything else; after all, the zeal and affection with which he regards his fellows” is all that is important.

Jane Addams really carried the ball over the goal-line for people who believe that Catholics are not zealous, nor affectionate toward their fellow man in the abstract and the particular. In fact, Jane Addams  is held in greater esteem by secularists, politicians of both parties who want to be considered Progressive, most academics and journalists and people who brand themselves independent thinkers, than canonized saints, Catholic bishops and theologians and people of simple faith.

Governor Pat Quinn cut and pasted Paul's letter to the Corinthians in order to fluff up the bunting over the redefinition of marriage in Illinois, rather than support St. Paul's doctrines.  St. Paul is the enemy of Jane Addams and her adopted spiritual children. Jane was a follower of Auguste Comte - the father of sociology and the religion of humanity.  The Social Gospel preached by Miss Settlement House and The Reverend Mr Quinn is all about science as the grease of government and government the salvific Eucharist itself.   As Brandon Harnish wrote in his brilliant essay Jane Addams's Social Gospel Synthesis and the Catholic Response, "in Addams's view Christianity is like putty, its greatest attribute being its ability to change shape." - to evolve.

The Progressive Movement grabbed Darwin by the forelocks and swung him in every direction -war & peace, sickness and in health, birth and death, sex and marriage have been formed and re-formed more than Late Night television. Jane Addams's Social Gospel was the religious component of the Progressive Movement, but it was her dabbling in politics that really paid off and proved the whetstone for the progressive dagger.  Jane Addams bullied her way into an appointment as 19th Ward sanitary officer and the rest was history.  Hull House was as much political headquarters as Alderman Johnny De Pow's grocery and saloon.  From Hull House, Addams preached her Social Gospel and waged holy war on the Democratic Party that not only bowed to, but canonized this Dowager a century later.

The Social Gospel has no room for a pew full of Catholics, so long as they remain Catholic.

As Jane Addams's Social Gospel was putty, the Catholic view of Christianity is stone ( remember the Rock of Peter?) 'used for foundation and construction alike.  The Catholic Church in Chicago was decades ahead of the Progressive in care for the poor, the elderly, the indigent, the unwanted and the ignorant.  The Social Gospel preachers evangelized politicians, journalists, professors and the comfortable.  Government replaced good works with policy.

Policy is Pat Quinn.  How's things going? One way.


Thursday, November 21, 2013

Lincoln's Furniture or St. Peter's Rock.

St. Thomas More

“Rather, we expect that further efforts will be undertaken by plaintiffs’ lawyers or by others to use the redefinition of marriage in Illinois as a cudgel to infringe on rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion on the part of Illinois citizens who conscientiously oppose homosexual relations as gravely wrong and sinful. In other states where marriage has been similarly redefined, forceful and repeated attacks have been waged against such individuals, religious groups or associations, and business owners.  At Thomas More Society, we are prepared to defend the free and untrammeled exercise of sincerely held religious beliefs and the right to advocate freely against homosexual acts by those who adhere to Church teachings and Biblical principles. Americans’ preeminent and paramount rights of free speech and the exercise of religious liberty must prevail.” Thomas More Society

Pat Quinn signed the Gay Marriage Law, yesterday, on  Abe Lincoln's desk.  There was no possible way that this law would not pass the Illinois House, after the Illinois Senate sent a Valentine Card to the fortunes behind the Marriage Equality Movement.  

Civil Unions was never going to be enough, because enough is not a feast.

I supported civil unions, but I fundamentally object to the redefinition of marriage and that is all that happened yesterday.  It was not a Sexual Selma Moment, nor was it a Gay Gettysburg.  It was political power play pure and simple.  If you disagree with this redefinition of marriage, then you are a legal and political target.

I do not take particular pride in my sex life.  It is what it is.  I take pride in the care of my children in honor of my vows to their departed mother, whom I married in the rites of the Roman Catholic Church and according to the laws of the State of Illinois.  I am widowed.

Engaging in sex outside of marriage is a sin, for which I must make penance after Confession.  This I believe.  I believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation.   Pat Quinn signed away my beliefs.

A pair of gents, or brace of gals, no matter how loving and committed to one another, can never procreate.  Can't have kids. Adoption has nothing to do this.

I wish gay couples every happiness and hope that they will return the sentiment.  So far, I am just not feeling it. Rather, there has been a constant misreading of Cardinal George and Bishop Paprocki in the same media that covers for the political, cultural and economic  train wreck that is Illinois.

I await the displeasure of those who wish me and mine no earthly good.  That does not bother me a jot.

Lincoln's Springfield desk was hauled to UIC Center as part of panoply surrounding Pandering Pat's penmanship, yesterday.  That's nice. It was as artificial as the parsing of Pope Francis.

I am not overwhelmed by furniture.

I'll stick with the Rock of Peter.  

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Catholics Still Stand Up for Our Battered Church




The Catholic Church can not be allowed the time to elect a successor to St. Peter with a cascade of abuse and hostile sneers from the very industry that promotes decadence and universal disrespect - the news media.

While waiting for a friend's plane to land at O'Hare Airport, I watched the monitors featuring the news - it was merely CNN.  Christianne Amanpour, whom, for the life of me, I do not equate with matters religious  and bears a very strong resemblance to tobacco icon Joe Camel. was the featured mouthpiece - live at the Vatican and the always idiotic Soledad O'Brien trotted out the HBO-hit-piece Mea Culpa director*. Worse they reached out to Jeffrey Anderson, the absolute slimiest of the bottom-feeding ambulance chasers and the wizard of SNAP.  Anderson has made millions from bringing suit against the Church and making the media his catamite.

Anderson, who was a bust-out louse with a law license living in his Volkswagon, until he settled on suing the Catholic Church, because it asked a wino not to urinate in the vestibule of a church, is now trolling for work with the  Pope -to-Be. 


First, disclose the names of all the clerics credibly accused and known to the Vatican worldwide along with the country, state and parish or school where the offenses were allegedly committed. . . .Fifth, retain independent and outside professionals to conduct an audit to assure compliance and reliability. An example of a case where this independent investigation worked is the Louis Freeh Report regarding Penn State and the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal.
Sixth, retain independent and outside professionals, nonclerics who do not have a requirement of obedience to the pope and bishops, to conduct investigations into child sex crimes by clergy.
Seventh, retain independent and outside professionals to train, educate and modernize child protection procedures and protocols in every diocese worldwide. You know, like me, Jeff Anderson! ( emphases and sotto voce my own)

Huffington Post offers a  video featuring a precious pair of punks ( click the link and go to the video)who I would love to have join me at Father Perez Knights of Columbus after the Blackhawks lose a close on and have them offer their thoughts.

The Catholic Church and Catholics are in the cultural/political/ legal cross-hairs and shall be for a long time to come.

The Catholic Church alone stood against abortion, until the late 1970's when they were joined by evangelical Protestants and orthodox Jews.

Here is a great voice from a Catholic gent.


Pedophiles
What a blessing it will be when the last pedophile and other weirdos will be weeded out of our Catholic Church. They’ve used it as a hiding place for years to enable them, (they thought) to continue their destructive behavior. When first discovered their bishops simply moved them to another parish, not realizing the serious consequences of their actions. Unfortunately the resulting scandal also got their bishops in a lot of legal hot water, which became a windfall for attorneys like Jeff Anderson whose article in the Dispatch a few months ago asked abused victims to come forward, which hopefully they will?
However have you ever wondered how a jury can convict a dead man of abusing 200 boys as stated in Mr. Anderson’s article? Some of these cases are ridiculous but with millions of dollars at stake, and Catholic priests it seems are guilty unless they can prove their innocence, which is impossible, it’s easy to understand why. I’ve known several dedicated priests who walked away from their profession saying, “You simply cannot fight this and win.”
We as parishioners gave our donations in good faith to our Diocese for Catholic schools, Catholic Relief Services, helping the poor, etc. It’s a wonderful gesture on the part of our church to compensate the true victims, and they certainly have my deepest sympathy. Every few days we read of another sex abuser moving into our area. We read of abused victims of teachers, coaches and pastors of other faiths, where are the million dollar settlements for their victims? The Catholic Church has tried to do the right thing and I commend them for it.
The scandalous TV documentaries about our church, such as Dan Rather on HD Net and others, make our church out to be and I quote the California attorney on that show who said, “The Catholic Church is a big rich powerful organization that makes Enron look like a Sunday school picnic” greatly disturbed me. I had written this when Mr. Anderson’s article first appeared in the Dispatch but just didn’t have the guts to publish it. The cartoon of the devil and the altar boys in the Sunday paper was an insult to me, my church, and I believe even to our friends of other faiths in this area. God bless the wonderfully dedicated Catholic priests I’ve known in my 75 years of being proud to be a Catholic.
Ed Koska
Nisswa
Me too ,Ed.
*  

Friday, January 04, 2013

White House Posts Petition to List Catholic Church a 'Hate Group'



The First Gay President allowed his website to post this:
The White House Emblem
The White House Emblem

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group.

In his annual Christmas address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI, the global leader of the Roman Catholic Church, demeaned and belittled homosexual people around the world. Using hateful language and discriminatory remarks, the Pope painted a portrait in which gay people are second-class global citizens. Pope Benedict said that gay people starting families are threatening to society, and that gay parents objectify and take away the dignity of children. The Pope also implied that gay families are sub-human, as they are not dignified in the eyes of God.
Upon these remarks, the Roman Catholic Church fits the definition of a hate group as defined by both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

 "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history." Francis Cardinal George, OMI Archbishop of Chicago

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/officially-recognize-roman-catholic-church-hate-group/CZB81hWK