Author: R J Adams

Condoleeza Rice’s recent visit to Russia has ended in failure. It’s not surprising when you consider that nothing Rice has done since her promotion to Secretary of State has ended any other way. In fact, the same could be said for the whole administration, including the president. Most American presidents, on leaving office, leave a legacy of sorts. Apart from play the role of a modern Emperor Nero, what has George W Bush or his administration achieved in two terms?

Rice’s visit to Russia, billed as a “diplomatic visit”, was more of a farce. ‘Diplomacy’ is not in her dictionary. If she was puzzled by Putin’s apparent coldness towards her country, when she informed him the U.S. intends to pursue the sighting of its missiles in Poland and Czechoslovakia, she might consider this:

Imagine if the boot were on the other foot and Russia had formed an alliance with Canada. Consider a situation where Canada agreed to deploy Russian missiles on its border with the U.S.. The Russian foreign secretary makes a “diplomatic visit” to the American president and tells him the Russian missiles “are nothing to worry about.”

How would the American people expect their president to respond?

Filed under: Diplomacy of aggression

“Never speak ill of the dead, pharmacy ” is a philosophy of deceit. If someone was disreputable in life, here then death can never change that. Jerry Falwell was a millstone around the neck of America, order dragging it ever backwards into the dark ages.

Much will be said and written of this man over the next weeks, most of it crass, shallow and deceitful in its uttering, by those with most to gain from such dishonest eulogy. Some Republican nominees for the presidency have already begun.

I will not waste my time writing more on the passing of this man, except to say that I hope he gets the Heaven he deserves.

Filed under: Dead hypocrites

Regular readers of Sparrow Chat will be well aware of the opinion of this writer on matters of organized religion. There are two distinct ways to control and manipulate the human species. Both have been practiced and perfected over millennia. One is via the political process, and the other is through religion.

Quite what it is that draws thousands of otherwise normal human beings to assemble en masse before a gray-haired old geezer in a frock coat and silly hat, while he spouts a load of mumbo-jumbo in the guise of producing a saint out of a long-dead monk unknown to 99% of humanity, is beyond normal comprehension. Nevertheless, that is what happened in Sao Paulo, Brazil this very day.

Years ago, as a young boy, I remember watching on TV, black and white film shot by explorers in Africa. The quaint rituals of witch-doctors were fascinating to a child experiencing such strange wonders for the first time, so different from the mundanity of everyday British life. The antics of Pope Benedict the whatever, share a startling similarity with those voodoo witchdoctor’s rituals that held me spellbound fifty years ago.

Part of the ritual involved this Catholic Pontiff embracing a women and her son. The woman had a uterine malformation that should have prevented her from bearing children, but after swallowing paper with a Latin prayer inscribed on it, the lady became pregnant. Friar Galvao, the Church of Rome’s latest No 1 hit in the Top Ten of Catholic Saints, is credited with inventing the idea, though how the good lady managed to swallow one of his Latin prayers for lunch is a mystery, given that Friar Galvao lived in the eighteenth century.

The more serious aspect of Benedict’s visit to Brazil has to to do with his biased opinions regarding abortion, and the state’s intention to legalize the operation. Benedict doesn’t approve, and is attempting to dissuade the government from its actions. Today, during the canonization of long-rotted Friar Galvao, the hypocrite Pope encouraged his flock to help the needy “in an age so full of hedonism”

“Hedonism” is the pursuit of happiness or pleasure as the chief good in life. Pope Benedict the whatever doesn’t want us to be happy. He believes pleasure is a sin. He wants us all to be miserable, just as he isn’t. He has all the trappings of luxury: fine food, beautiful villas, magnificent works of art, everything his heart desires, but he expects his flock to seek misery, poverty, unhappiness.

Never mind if an unwanted pregnancy ruins the life of a young woman; it’s God’s will that she should die from a back-street abortion rather than be granted modern medical care. Never mind that it’s the dogma of a bigoted old fool that caused her pregnancy, by denying her the contraception that would have prevented it. Never mind that it’s the dogma of a bigoted old fool who says she should deny her natural desires and instincts, and not have sex unless she is married according to the dictates of the old fool.

The old fool will tell you it’s God’s will.

How does he know it’s God’s will, when the rest of us haven’t a clue what God’s will is, or even if “God” exists at all?

If there is one person on this planet that can answer that question satisfactorily, then I personally will ordain that person a saint.

I defy anyone to answer it, because the old fool is just an old fool, and those who flock to hear his rantings are even greater fools than he.

Filed under: Manipulations