WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THIS?

I support child abuse.

You probably remember around the time of the Super Bowl when that new anti-drug PR campaign was launched. I thought a variation of that slogan would be nice for a new anti-Catholic ad. At least if you're a Catholic you might have to admit you support their transgressions with your donations. We all know that they employ child abusers all over the world as priests, right? Fortunately I'm not a Catholic.

By the way, would you like some sweeping generalities in your coffee this morning? Oh, I see you already have some. Let me plug in my rationalization generator too. Actually that generality is so untrue it's hardly worth repeating. I dislike the firebrand fundamentalists but I do recognize that most Christians, Catholics included, are really decent people, and the vast majority of their ministers are good and kind, earnestly trying to help people cope with their problems. Perhaps we should sweep up that first generality and take it out with the trash. And let me get a new cup of coffee for you too, this one tastes funny now.

I've seen so many Catholic priests on the talk shows lately, all wringing their hands over the abusers they've suddenly discovered in their midst. Watching TV today you'd think that every third Catholic priest is a pervert. And every day it seems like people are stepping up with more horror tales about this Father and that altar boy a couple decades ago. Are we getting into a witch hunt here? How do you tell what is true and what's not? It's almost like a replay of the Bill and Monica affair--he said, she said--only this time the stain is on someone's Sunday best. Or maybe there's no stain and they just want to scam a big settlement from Deep Pockets Mother Church. Or perhaps they really do think there was abuse in their past because some friendly hypnotist has helped them create new memories of abuse. Sorry, said that wrong. Wasn't that "recover" suppressed memories?

Recovered memory is mostly bunk. It works on the same principle of suggestion that John Edwards uses in "talking to the dead." You know, maybe these suggestions work because "Archdiocese" sounds like a name for a comic book villain and some bad association is made in a disturbed mind. Who knows? People want to believe this stuff so they can blame someone outside themselves for their problems. Maybe a particularly talented psychologist can hypnotically probe to find some genuine hidden facts in a patient's subconscious, but I'd bet money that most doctors aren't careful enough to do it properly, what with 40 patients to see every week and a thousand other factors tugging on them. To not plant suggestions is very tricky and the whole technique is far from reliable.

All that being said, I am sure that some of these stories are quite true and there are a number of pedophile priests that were forgiven over and over again, and went on abusing members of their flock for years. So, Mother Church, heal thyself. And you there, the object of abuse, heal thyself. Especially if it was just a stray grope. GET OVER IT. A pile of money will not change the facts.

Oh well, that's easy for me to say, and every case is different. More sweeping generalizations. Just keep passing that plate folks, we need to pay off all these claims against us. Let me turn the rationalizations up a notch, too. And can someone bring more coffee? This batch tastes awfully bitter.

Exactly where does your money go when you give to the Church, anyway? It pays for upkeep on the property, for gowns and miters and priestly payrolls. And these new legal bills. And maybe a little to help the needy once they get all that paid. And what's this huge line item for organ repair? Wonder which organ they're talking about? Anyway, none of it goes to pay taxes, that much we know for sure.

Taxes. You know I had to get to this topic somehow; it's Tax Month. Actually I was planning a rant about how Enron and many other corporations that are still with us NEVER PAY TAXES. Not even the alternative minimum tax. That's the amount of tax on profits that you supposedly can't get below. Minimum tax, hah! Many corporations even have the government pay them! They actually get refunds on various tax credits which just adds to their profits, leaving individuals like you and me to pay all the taxes. That's right, your tax money is going to profitable corporations. It would have been a nice little rant, but I threw it out for a different tax related topic. Ready? Now I get to say something that may surprise you.

I support terrorism.

We're back to that anti-drug PR campaign. The repeated theme was "I help support terrorism" with my illegal drug purchases. It's a powerful statement. I can agree with part of that message because there are indeed some very violent people in that industry. But are we really responsible?

Wait a second, I have to turn up the rationalization circuit up to full blast here for a bit. ARE WE REALLY RESPONSIBLE? PERSONALLY??

Yes, some of my tax dollars are responsible for deaths caused by the stray bullets of law enforcement. And the not-so-stray bullets of our special forces in Columbia, let's not forget them. What, you didn't know we started a Vietnam style counter-terrorism war in Colombia? Shades of the early sixties, it's exactly how the Vietnam War started. First Eisenhower and then much more under Kennedy we sent in "advisers" to fight battles against communist revolutionaries. What we might call terrorists now. Slowly it ratcheted up to the point where we had a half million troops in there. And still we couldn't win, but that's another story. It remains that I support misguided drug war policies that cause innocents to die with my tax dollars. I don't do drugs anymore, but I'm not free of guilt in these deaths.

But there's more. I'm also talking about much worse stuff my taxes help pay for. In addition to these inadvertent deaths, I support terrorism because several billion of our tax dollars go to Israel every year.

In their retaliatory strikes against Yassir Arafat, still continuing as I write this, it seems like the Israelis are taking their cue from Resident Bush's War On Afghanistan. He toppled the Taliban just because they were in the way to getting Osama Bin Laden, not because we had any particular beef with them. We'd been ignoring their atrocities for years, even giving them millions of dollars in aid this time last year. Anyway, I didn't like the idea of sending troops to fight the government of Afghanistan, arresting Bin Laden would have been enough. But I don't know if there was any good way to do that without a major projection of force.

Is that rationalization circuit turned all they way up yet? I still feel pangs of guilt.

I would love to say that a dirty situation has been cleaned up with a minimum of collateral damage. We all knew that some damage would happen, but even after all these months NO ONE KNOWS HOW MUCH COLLATERAL DAMAGE WE CAUSED. The military sure isn't talking and the media has been totally cowed on the subject. But apart from inadvertent destruction we caused there, now we are seeing other kinds of nasty unintended consequences popping up. Israel now thinks they can behave just like we did.

When terror strikes, send in the troops; that's the message we sent. In the No World Order it's okay to send in your troops anytime you feel like it. Don't worry about any old UN resolutions or public opinion, just put them all down. Them. The ones huddling over there that don't dress quite like we do. The ones that don't pray quite like we do. The ones that need to be taught a lesson.

Israel, no, Israel's leaders, seem to care little about finding the actual perpetrators of the terror that's been visited upon them. Instead they are bent destroying the will of all the Palestinians to resist their rule. How? By using massive force. By their attacks on the Palestinian leaders, they intend to cause so much dread in the hearts of the Palestinians that no one can hope to win against them. They want a state where no one will dare rise up against them, no matter how much they bully the Palestinian people around. That's not peace. That's not justice. That's a state of terror.

It's the whole idea of armies, you know. Their job is projecting terror, or more accurately, fear, into the adversary. When the fear is strong enough, the enemy's will to fight is broken and the battle stops. Americans keep a huge army so no one will ever attack us, but it wasn't always like that. After World War One we disbanded much of our army. Then Pearl Harbor happened. After World War Two we kept it much larger. Then we built all those damn ICBM's and missile submarines. Why? Because we want to project so much fear into any potential attacker that they won't even try.

But if you are so desperate that you are willing to commit suicide, this equation doesn't work. And the Palestinians will have a steady supply of desperation for decades to come as long as they are denied land, jobs or future.

The Israelis either have to go Biblical on the Palestinians--as the Hebrews once practiced genocide on the original Canaanites--or they have to swallow their pride and learn to live next to the Palestinians as neighbors and equals. The Palestinians have to learn to demand justice without resorting to violence and then learn to live next to the Israelis as neighbors and equals too. Pretty hard to do when both sides think they are the apple of God's eye.

Maybe if we had a real statesman instead of an unelected former 2.0 average Skull and Bones party animal in the White House, we could actually make some progress over there. Maybe. But we've been trying for decades to get these sides to deal with each other without planning to bomb more shopping centers or to bulldoze out new subdivisions behind the other's back. Let's do something different. Let's start by cutting back our Israeli welfare program and invest in making conditions a little more equal for the Palestinians. One thing's for sure, first the violence has to stop. Calling on Arafat to bring Hamas under control while his offices are under fire is a little ridiculous. And if you kill him, his replacement will only be that much more militant.

Wait a second, I smell something burning around here. Damn! My rationalization circuits just melted down. I think it took the coffee machine with it.
Who's responsible here? I think it starts with the quality of our leaders. From one willing to cover up for a pedophile with four or five strikes against him, to one who winks at bomb throwers while talking peace, to one who thinks that tanks can stop suicide bombers, to one that doesn't see anything wrong with his powerful friends steering the government towards profit, not people. It starts there, but it ends with us as long as we don't demand better. As long as we blindly let these guys do whatever they want with our tithes and taxes, we do support child abuse, murder and terrorism.

I think I need to go back in the Closet and start taking more responsibility for my part in all this. I'll start by writing some letters to put them on notice. Replacing the rationalization generator and the coffee machine can wait until later. Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.

(C) 2002 - Rusty Pipes

Official Disclaimer: The publisher and editor's of Cosmik Debris want to make it clear that even if we HAVE any missles - and we're not saying we do - we're not sharing them. Not that we could because we don't have any anymore. I mean we never had any. Missles. Never did. But if we did, it wouldn't be to build up a Cosmik Debris army and scare shit outta all you pissants. I mean other countries. I mean friends. We believe in the peace process. We think it can work. We think Patty Hearst was telling the truth and Oswald acted alone. Thank you. I mean "cheese." No more questions.