Pope Francis Fails the Test on Sexual Abuse

Pope Francis' visit to south America has not been well received by many.  True, large crowds of lemming like Catholics have turned out for his appearances, but many are unmoved by Francis' crocodile tears and false pleas of sorrow for the rampant sexual abuse that the Vatican and the Church hierarchy have allowed for many decades, if not longer.  There has been no real repentance and no real action to punish those who allowed this attitude that sexual abuse was a case of droit du seigneur for the hypocrisy filled priesthood.  In Chile, as CBS New notes, violence greeted Francis:

Overnight three more Catholic churches were torched, including one burned to the ground in the southern Araucania region where Francis will visit on Wednesday to meet with Chile's indigenous peoples. While not causing any injuries, the nine church firebombings in the past few days have marked an unprecedented level of protest against history's first Latin American pope on his home turf.

Sadly, no reform will come from within the Church and decent people should walk away.  If the fail to do so and continue to support the Church, they are complicit in abuse and continued cover ups.   An editorial in the New York Times rightly takes Francis to task for his continued failure to take decisive action.  Here are highlights:

 Pope Francis arrived in Chile with the right message: He was “pained and ashamed,” he said on Tuesday, about the irreparable damage abusive priests have inflicted on minors. Yet he refused to meet with victims of the country’s most nefarious sexual abuser, and when pressed about his support of a bishop linked to that priest, he dismissed the accusations as slander.

For all his professions of horror at the revelations about predatory priests whose activities were covered up by the hierarchy — and for all his other admirably enlightened and pastoral actions — it seems the pope has yet to fully appreciate that the abuse of minors is not simply a matter of a few deviant priests protected by overzealous prelates but of his church’s acceptance of a horrible violation of a most sacred trust: that of a devout and questioning youth and a spiritual guide.

Acknowledging and regretting the damage is not enough. If the Catholic Church is ever to lift the deep stain of child sex abuse, the pope must take every opportunity to reject not only clear violations but also the slightest appearance of tolerance for such behavior.

He missed that opportunity by attending the funeral last month for Cardinal Bernard Law, the powerful former archbishop of Boston who resigned after revelations that he protected abusive priests for years and became, in effect, the image of a hierarchy that concealed and thereby enabled sexual abuse. He missed it in the failure of the Vatican so far to appoint a new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors after the commissioners’ terms expired in December.

And Pope Francis missed it again in Chile. One of Latin America’s most staunchly Catholic countries, Chile had been shaken by revelations about the sexual crimes of Fernando Karadima, once one of Chile’s most respected and influential priests. It took years for the church to act on complaints about him, but a Vatican investigation in 2011 finally found Father Karadima guilty of sexual abuse and restricted him to a life of isolated penitence. A Chilean judge later determined that the allegations against the priest were truthful, but the statute of limitations had expired.

Among those accused of turning a blind eye to Father Karadima’s behavior was a priest and longtime member of Father Karadima’s entourage, Juan Barros Madrid. Yet Pope Francis made him a bishop in 2015 and, despite protests from victims of Father Karadima and from many priests and laypeople in the diocese, Bishop Barros participated in the pope’s official ceremonies in Chile. When reporters raised the subject on Thursday, Pope Francis answered sharply that there was “not one single piece of evidence” against the bishop. “It is all slander,” he declared. “Is that clear?”

Victims of sexual abuse may have only their tortured memories as evidence, and these have been dismissed for far too long as slander by a hierarchy intent on protecting the church’s reputation. Pope Francis has repeatedly pledged action to end the abuse and the cover-up, . . . . . . But too often he and his church raise doubts that they’re fully committed.

Chaos in Dallas as Snipers Kill 5 Police and Wound 6 Others

What began as a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas, Texas - one of many across the country in the wake of two recent shootings of black males - turned into a nightmare and chaos as possibly four (4) snipers used the gathering to launch a full scale attack on police that left five officers dead and six more wounded.  Three suspects are in custody and one sniper was killed during the exchange of gunfire.  If the shooters had any connection to the protests other than taking advantage of the gathering of police at the event is under investigation.  If nothing else, the event again shows that America's ridiculous gun laws allows those who should not have guns to easily purchase them and commit mayhem.  Here are some highlights from the New York Times:  

DALLAS — Five Dallas police officers were killed and six others were wounded by snipers Thursday night during a demonstration protesting shootings by officers in Minnesota and Louisiana this week, the authorities said.

The police say they believe four people coordinated the attack with rifles, Police Chief David O. Brown said, and positioned themselves in triangulated locations near the end of the route the protesters planned to take. The police had three people in custody and were negotiating in the early-morning hours with a fourth, who was in a garage in downtown Dallas at El Centro, a community college.

That suspect had exchanged gunfire with the police and was being uncooperative in talks, Chief Brown said at a news conference in the lobby of City Hall.

The suspect “has told our negotiators that the end is coming and he’s going to hurt and kill more of us, meaning law enforcement, and that there are bombs all over the place in this garage and downtown,” Chief Brown said.

The three other suspects are a woman who was taken from the garage and two others who were taken in for questioning after a traffic stop.

[President Obama remarked] “Police in Dallas were on duty doing their jobs, keeping people safe, during peaceful protests. These law enforcement officers were targeted, and nearly a dozen officers were shot. Five were killed. Other officers, and at least one civilian, were wounded. Some are in serious condition and we are praying or their recovery.”

Chief Brown said the suspects in custody were not providing investigators with many details. “We just are not getting the cooperation we’d like, to know that answer of why, the motivation, who they are,” he said.

The shooting had been carried out by snipers who fired down on a demonstration in the city’s downtown area that until that point had been peaceful, the chief said.

They “planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could,” Chief Brown said.

“Some were shot in the back,” the chief said. “We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers.”

Chief Brown said it was too early in the investigation to say whether there was any connection between the shooters and the demonstration. He suggested that those involved had some knowledge of the march route.

The protest was planned by Dominique R. Alexander, an ordained minister and the head of the Next Generation Action Network.

He said that the organization “does not condone violence against any human being, and we condemn anyone who wants to commit violence.”  “I was right there when the shooting happened,” Mr. Alexander said. “They could have shot me.”

This killing spree will do nothing to improve already strained relations between black citizens and police.  It also underscores a continuing problem in America: the total inability of far too many to see the common humanity of others of different races, religious faiths and sexual orientations.   Whatever the shooters thought they would accomplish other than killing police officers, they likely set things backward instead of improving things. 

Are Americans Finally Realizing the Police Brutality is Everyone's Problem?

Watching the aftermath of two grand jury decisions that allowed two police officers to in the view of some get away with murder, there seem to be two reactions overall.  The white conservative Christofascists/Tea Party crowd - perhaps because of the multitude of white supremacists with that group - have either yawned at the issue or believed that it's not an issue because the victims were blacks (Note the view of Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) - a foul individual in my estimation - below).  Others from the sane and decent elements of society outside the black community may, however, be waking up to the reality that the problem threatens all of us.  I've recounted my own experience with gay bashing cops and sadly there are numerous stories of police shooting white youths without justification.  And it you're in a low income white neighborhood, don't count on the police acting the same as they would in a wealthy society neighborhood.  An editorial in the New York Times examines what may be the beginning of a long needed awakening.  Here are highlights:

The country has historically reacted with doubt or indifference when African-Americans speak of police officers who brutalize — or even kill — people with impunity. Affluent and middle-class white Americans who were treated with respect by the police had difficulty imagining the often life-threatening mistreatment that black Americans of all walks of life dealt with on a daily basis. Perhaps those days are passing away.

You can see that from the multiracial cast of the demonstrations that have swept the nation since Wednesday, when a grand jury decided not to indict a white New York City police officer whose chokehold killed Eric Garner, an unarmed black man.

In city after city, white and nonwhite citizens have surged through the streets chanting or bearing signs with Mr. Garner’s final words: “I can’t breathe.” Others chanted: “Hands up; don’t shoot” or “Black lives matter” — slogans from the racially troubled town of Ferguson, Mo., where another grand jury declined to indict the officer who shot to death 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The viral spread of the demonstrations — and the wide cross section of Americans who are organizing and participating in them — shows that what was once seen as a black issue is on the way to being seen as a central, American problem.

The question of the moment is whether the country’s political leadership has the will to root out abusive and discriminatory policing — corrosive, longstanding problems that bore down on minority communities, large and small, urban and suburban.

This week, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. released a particularly alarming report on the barbaric conduct of the police department in Cleveland, which has been riven with discord in recent weeks, after a white police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old black boy, Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun.

The Times reported on Friday that the officer had quit a suburban police force after his supervisors judged that he had a “dangerous loss of composure” during firearms training and was emotionally unprepared to deal with the stresses of the job. The Cleveland Police Department had failed to examine the officer’s work history before hiring him.

The Justice Department report describes the Cleveland Police Department as something far closer to an occupying military force than a legitimate law enforcement agency. The officers, for example, seem to take a casual view of the use of deadly force, shooting at people who pose no threat of harm to the police or others.

[A]spects of illegal police conduct can be found in cities all over the country, subjecting millions to intimidation and fear that they could be killed for innocent actions.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, for example, asked, “Why does the federal government feel like it is its responsibility and role to be the leader in an investigation in a local instance?” That sounds like something out of the Jim Crow era, when Southern states argued that they were entitled to treat black citizens any way they wished.

That so many are in the streets protesting police abuse shows that outrage over these injustices is spreading. Now it is up to the nation’s political leaders to confront this crisis.

How one gets treated by police should not depend on the color of one's skin, their hair or dress style, the street they live on or whether they have a yacht or country club sticker on their car.  We also need to face the reality that there are many on police forces who have no business wearing a badge and carrying a gun. The Cleveland murder of a 12 year old underscores that reality.

Scores Arrested in Russia Before Olympic Opening Ceremony

Moscow - 2014

Just as Adolph Hitler and his thugs orchestrated opening ceremony pageantry for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, so too is Vladimir Putin and his goons.  And just as Hitler's thugs arrested those who stood against his regimes agenda of hate and bigotry before the 1936 Summer Games, so too is Vladimir Putin.  As the New York Times, at least 60 individuals have been arrested in the lead up to today's opening ceremony.  Their crime?  Protesting against Russia's anti-gay laws and the green light Putin has given to anti-gay vigilante violence and other Russian atrocities against minorities.  I sincerely hope that worldwide viewers do not allow themselves to be duped by Putin's PR campaign.  I have no animous toward the Russian people - only their foul dictator and his corrupt and vile accomplices who are continuing a near century long tradition of brutalizing far too many of Russia's citizens.  Here are highlights from the Times article:

From St. Petersburg to the Caucasus, the authorities detained at least 61 people on Friday for holding unauthorized protests ahead of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The detentions underscored the government’s efforts to stifle protests even far away from the Games.

The police swept up 37 people who gathered in Nalchik, the capital of the southern Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, to draw attention to the historic grievances of the Circassians, whose homeland around Sochi was occupied by Russian imperial forces 150 years ago. In St. Petersburg, four gay-rights activists were arrested as they unfurled a banner quoting the Olympic Charter’s principle of nondiscrimination.

In Moscow, at least 19 people were arrested near Red Square during a smattering of protests calling for gay rights. Those detained included several foreign activists who gathered at a clock counting down the last minutes to the opening of the Games.

Yet another prominent opposition leader, Dmitri Berdnikov, the leader of a group that organizes protests against arbitrary prosecutions and court rulings, was detained at the airport in Kazan, in central Russia, as he prepared to board a flight.

“Human rights are generally violated in Russia,” said Polina Andrianova, a gay-rights activist in St. Petersburg, where the four demonstrators were arrested shortly after posing for a photograph near the State Hermitage Museum with a banner that read, “Discrimination is incompatible with the Olympic Movement. Principle 6. Olympic Charter.”

Among the four was Anastasia Smirnova, a spokeswoman for a coalition of gay-rights organizations in the city, who recently met with the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, to draw attention to Russia’s policies toward homosexuality, including a law adopted last year prohibiting gay “propaganda” aimed at children. At least some of the protesters were later released, though they could face fines or other administrative punishment, according to All Out, an organization that held rallies in cities around the world this week.

In Sochi, Mr. Putin appeared to express frustration that protests over Russia’s policies threatened to overshadow the spectacle of the Games. The issue of gay rights came up again during a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands.

It is also important that we recognize that Putin and Russia do not have a monopoly on homophobia or animus toward minorities.  That same mindset is alive and well here in Virginia as evidenced by the GOP controlled House of Delegates action to kill every single pro-gay bill introduced this year.  

Hitler 1936

Putin 2014

Why Occupy Wall Street Crowds are Upset

Many in the GOP - including Virginia douche bag Congressman Eric Cantor - have maligned those involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests. In Cantor's case he claims the protesters are "pitting Americans against other Americans" and implies that they are UN-American. If pitting citizens against one another is the litmus test, Cantor should be out calling out the Tea Party and his "friends" in the Christian Right who view Cantor and his fellow Jews merely as a trigger for Armageddon. Of course, we will never see that from a power hungry, sleazy political whore like Cantor who, in my opinion, would sell his mother if the price was right. NOTE: The figures above were as of 2007 - the concentration has likely worsened since that time as the middle class has been slammed by falling real estate prices and increased unemployment.

Obama Administration Throws Book at DADT Protestors

I applauded the actions of the 13 LGBT military veterans and activists who chained themselves to the White House fence last fall to draw attention to the need for DADT repeal. Now, in yet another action that contradicts Barack Obama's claimed support for LGBT rights, the government's lawyers made clear on Friday that they intend to prosecute the 13 defendants for "violating the orders of a federal law enforcement officer." These charges could result in jail time and represent the first time DADT protesters have been in federal court. The other defendants were processed for minor misdemeanors in DC's court system. Could it be that our faux advocate doesn't like his spinelessness and double speak highlighted in such a dramatic way? Why do the words "liar" and "hypocrite" once again spring to mind? Here are brief highlights from America Blog:
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At today's arraignment, Mark Goldstone, the lawyer for the 13 protesters, explained to Federal Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola that the statute under which the defendants are being charged was unusual. He noted that it had not been used in recent past against people engaging in civil disobedience at the White House. For whatever reason, the government has decided to pursue the more serious criminal charges.
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What happened next was surprising to those in the Courtroom. Judge Facciola got up out of his chair, while pacing, gave a speech about the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. He intimated that there were trumped up charges back in the 50s and 60s, too. And, he evoked the Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham case, Martin Luther King's "letters from the Birmingham jail" and how civil rights protesters were often brought to court to face stricter charges. The judge clearly linked the protest over Don't Ask, Don't Tell to those earlier civil rights protests.
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The Judge asked the government prosecutor a lot of questions, including why the government didn't charge the protesters under the lesser crime of disorderly conduct. Apparently, and I had to ask Paul to repeat this a couple times, the prosecutor said the protesters were talking politely and weren't being that loud. So, they weren't being disorderly.
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[T]the Judge also asked the government to reconsider the tougher criminal charges. He told the lawyers to work it out. Til now, the government has been unwilling to seeking anything but a criminal conviction for "violating the orders of a federal law enforcement officer."

Blog Color Changes

In solidarity with the anti- Ahmadinejad and anti-dictatorship protesters in Iran I have changed some of the colors on the blog to green. Where the protests will lead no one knows, but one can only hope that the outcome will be an overthrow of the theocratic dictatorship and a renewed move to modernity.

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I also hope that watching the protests and desire for democracy among younger Iranians will help Americans realize that Ahmadinejad and his fellow thugs do not represent the hearts and minds of many, many Iranians.

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Moreover, too often Americans forget that Iran (formerly Persia) is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 7000 BC. A series of four dynasties governed Iran for more than 1000 years with high cultural advances - more than three times the duration of the United States. When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, the culture of the Persians made the Greeks look like barbarians.

How to Setup a Proxy for Iran Citizens

My thoughts continue to go out to the brave opponents of the Islamic dictators in Iran. As Andrew Sullivan has reported for several days now, many Iranian protesters are using twitter to get news out as to what is happening in Iran. The problem is that the Islamic dictatorship may well seek to shut down Internet access and shut off the news outflow. Here are the points being circulated by the opposition to the mullah's regime via Andrew's blog which I am sure are not welcomed by Ahmadinejad:

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This list was being passed around among the resistance in Iran today:

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1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn't qualify as a fair supreme leader

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2. Remove Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully

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3. Put Ayatollah Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi ( "constitution" ) is set up

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4. Recognize Mousavi as the official president

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5. A goverment by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution

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6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs ands or buts, right away

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7. Call off any secret organization such as "gasht ershad"

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Obsidian Wings has more on this issue - some of which is technically way over my head when in comes to computer savvy. If this information is correct and one has the know how, it is possible to set up proxies to help by pass Iranian restrictions. Here's an overview:

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From my tentative understanding, Iran's network is a lot like China's in that it's very centralized. This post explains (and illustrates) that the Iranian Internet traffic passes through a centralized bottleneck. (Imagine if the Holland Tunnel were the only way into Manhattan). With this bottleneck in place, it's easy to filter traffic. Just like the post office could theoretically block every envelope going to San Francisco, Iran can block packets going to the IP address for "Facebook" or "Twitter." (Great NYT article on these basics here).

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So here's where "proxies" come in (and techies, please help me out here if my understanding is off). Let's say you want to send a letter to San Francisco, but the post office doesn't allow it. Well, if you know that some dude in Kansas would forward your letter on to San Francisco, then you could go ahead and mail your SF-bound letter, but it would appear to the post office like it's going to Kansas.

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So that's how tweets are getting through. They're essentially being sent to "middlemen" proxy servers -- which, in turn, allows the information to pass "in disguise" through the filter. It's like a digital Underground Railroad. (Great overview of proxies and services like Tor here).

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For those with the technical know how, instructions on how to set up a proxy can be found here. I admit that it is beyond my capabilities. Without a simple platform like Blogger, this blog would not exist.