Who's going straight to hell in a handbasket? |
Mother T. was more than a saint...
It’s a shame, shame, shame—the way they mess around with her name. It's a shame, shame, shame—the way they (besmirch) smack around Mother T., when all she did was care, love, comfort, and aid the poorest children, helpless children, spread some joy to people who lived without the basic necessities.
"Mother Theresa's dark secret life: Faith in Doubt," "Mother Teresa's Dark Night of the Soul," "Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter that Changed Her Life..." were just some of the headlines. Were these drama-grabbing tactics necessary? For those not knowing what Mother T. accomplished, it might be easy to make erroneous assumptions from these grabby titles (that she was a good time girl or a street walker)!
Some people, Catholics and others, may assume a sort of payback effort is in play regarding articles written in contrast to Mother Teresa's words, perceived thoughts, and faith. The abusive, deceptive, criminal actions of some Catholic priests must surely cast doubt in the minds of others. But history has shown that religious types have been the faith soldiers out in force to aid and protect powerless people. The first, known, and significant child protective law was implemented because a deeply, religious woman, Etta Angell Wheeler, decided that she would fight to protect an innocent child, whom she had not even known but for the knowledge of the child's suffering and abuse by her parents. There were no child protective laws on the books; however, laws to protect animals were already enacted. A child was regarded as chattel, otherwise known as personal property, and this was the norm before laws were passed in the 1980s that attempted to protect children from sexual assault and abuse. The judicial system has still not caught on to the plight of the widespread problem of child abuse. Children are still, for the most part, not fully protected and some are still treated like personal property. But a woman (Etta Angell Wheeler) with beliefs in a higher power and her faith stepped in and was the first child advocate to shield and protect a child. It could be argued that faith has a lot more in common with having a conscience or morality than it does the act of a particular religion. (As with most things, there are some gray areas.)
Clever as it was, the headline grabber could have been "the secret life of the mother of all mothers" (Mother Teresa), but it would not change her legacy. How easy they forget? She yielded to a purpose; she went where the poorest dwell—in the slums and gutters of hell on Earth.
One could say she had questions and questioned religiosity, but who can objectively question her faith to persevere or her love for humanity?
Mother Teresa was more than a saint; she was a prophetess. She prophesied where some people were during her time and today in their faith and religion when they wondered whether good would one day prevail over evil. In a world where designer religion benefits the few and where the few decides who are in the in-group and castigates those deemed suitable for the out-group, only the morally challenged could ignore the obvious questions of the sad state of many human beings in their daily existence.
The mighty and the powerful continue to fall from grace. Exalted in static self-righteousness, they continue to fall from grace. If Mother Teresa questioned her religion, she did so as a loving warrior, routinely facing the dreadful world of disenfranchised people living as the poorest and most impoverished in a world filled with extreme wealth (riches).
Mother Teresa's so-called “secret life” turned out to be love for people, heightened awareness, strength under fire, and saintly courage.
*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************
Pam Ely
August 29, 2007
|
| Comments |
| The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
She was a saint in true form
Posted on: 2007-09-24 13:59:08
By: bobbi
|
|
I don't care what they say about her, she was a great woman and no one individual or group can change that.
|
IT'S TIME TO SWITCH THE CHANNEL!!
Posted on: 2007-12-01 23:39:12
By: hardlyworthit
|
Edited By: hardlyworthit
On: 2007-12-03 07:14:55
|
______________________________
Americans are feeling the pinch in every way possible. The housing market is a catastrophe. The U.S. dollar is at an all-time low. Peter Schiff, on the Glenn Beck show
(I know, I hate to quote his show on anything), said the government is lying to us when they say inflation is at 3%. He said people went out and spent borrowed money on Black Friday. Like drug addicts, people continue to spend in addictive ways. Everything is more valuable than money these days so that sounds like inflation. It's simply a mirage that things are going well and there's money to spend when so many people are without jobs. Recession: when the state of the economy declines; a widespread decline in the GDP and employment and trade lasting from six months to a year. The predictions are so dire that it seems closer to depression: a period of drastic decline in a national or international economy, characterized by decreasing business activity, falling prices, and unemployment. It's been reported that Europeans are coming by plane loads to purchase items that we imported from them. They arrive in large numbers and purchase items with the stronger EURO dollar. Baby Boomers will retire with less money to live on. Some will have to work past retirement age just to survive.
The news reports are mostly jumping onboard with reports that Iraq is doing so much better. Here's the trillion dollar question: How long will our military have to stay in Iraq in order for Iraq to do better? This, I believe, is relevant because it doesn't make sense that Iraqis would want to live for the rest of their lives in a military state of foreign occupation. Will we continue to fall for more lies from our government and the media? Correct me if I'm wrong but 180,000 is the number of American soldiers believed to be in Iraq. With that many soldiers away from their families and now living fulltime in Iraq, our military would have to get the job done. So when can they come home? The answer seems to be they won't be able to come home if they are to keep the powder keg from erupting in Iraq. How am I doing so far? They finally put enough soliders in the disaster to calm the storm, but how long must this be maintained so others can claim success?
PLEASE JOIN ME IN THIS PLEDGE:
We, the people, demand that the govenment and media tell the truth; we reject your lies and the continued lack of regard for the lives of our soldiers and their families; we reject your dismantling of institutions that would have protected Americans against predatory lending practices; we reject your inability to protect children from the other types of predators who continue to destroy their lives and that of their parents; we reject your distortion of the facts when you lie to us about the state of the family court system that is by no means tilted towards women or the protection of innocent children; we will boycott you, your companies, your fabricated/distorted news reporting; we reject your alliances with foreign companies that export dangerous toys, poisoned foods and pet foods, and other dangerous consumer items into the U.S.; we will make up our own minds about our next president; we will reject whomever (presidential candidate) you push to the forefront for your own self-serving reasons; we reject politicians who use tax payers dollars for adulterous affairs and then turn around and tell us that we aren't entitled to receive some of the same money for our health and our children's health; we will shut you out as you have shut us out of our futures and that of our children's.
BOYCOTT NEWS PROGRAMS THAT DISTORT THE TRUTH!! GET INFORMED. POST INFORMATION WITH COMPANIES THAT STEAL FROM US AND HARM OUR LIVES. BLOG THIS EVERYWHERE!! TAKE BACK AMERICA NOW!!
|
Re: IT'S TIME TO SWITCH THE CHANNEL!!
Posted on: 2007-12-06 17:48:28
By: gellanu
|
Edited By: gellanu
On: 2007-12-07 15:26:53
|
Since you guys are calling for boycotts of companies that rip us off/the media, etc., I'll get the list started for us and if anyone else has more to add, please do so.
Companies behaving badly:
The latest company to employ sweatshops and take advantage of people in poor countries while taking jobs away from Americans is: Victoria Secret. But they've been doing this for a long time. I found this on Victoria on AlterNet:
D.K. Garments is a subcontract factory with 150 foreign guest workers (135 from Bangladesh and 15 from Sri Lanka), which has been producing Victoria's Secret garments for the last year. None of the workers have been provided their necessary residency permits, without which they cannot venture outside the industrial park without fear of being stopped by the police and perhaps imprisoned for lack of proper documents.
The Victoria's Secret workers toil 14 to 15 hours a day, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., seven days a week, receiving on average one day off every three or four months. All overtime is mandatory, and workers are routinely at the factory 98 to 105 hours a week while toiling 89 to 96 hours. Treatment is very rough, as managers and supervisors scream at the foreign guest workers to move faster to complete their high production goals.
Workers who fall behind on their production goals, or who make even a minor error, can be slapped and beaten. Despite being forced to work five or more overtime hours a day, the workers are routinely shortchanged on their legal overtime pay, being cheated of up to $18.48 each week in wages due them. While this might not seem like a great deal of money, to these poor workers it is the equivalent of losing three regular days' wages each week.
Workers are allowed just 3.3 minutes to sew each $14 Victoria's Secret women's bikini, for which they are paid four cents. The workers' wages amount to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the $14 retail price of the Victoria's Secret bikini. They're saying we can do something about Victoria's corporate greed and slave labor by: Writing to Leslie Wexner, the CEO of Limited Brands, which puts out Victoria's Secret clothing, and protest the treatment of the workers in Jordan:
Leslie Wexner, CEO
Limited Brands Inc.
3 Limited Pkwy.
Columbus, Ohio 43230
United States
Phone: (614) 415-7000
Fax: (614) 415-7080
E-mail: tkatzenmeyer@limitedbrands.com
Read the rest: Victoria Secret Sweatshop labor.
Disney, Guess, Nike, J.C. Penny, and Victoria's Secret tops the "neediest and greediest" corporations list. The Gap was in the news recently but they have been a part of the sweatshop business for years (although some news organizations downplayed that in that recent news about them and how they've supposedly been doing better...maybe better at covering it up) Sweatshops still operating.
Here's the recent article on the Gap and child labor in India: The Gap Sweatshop Story: Child Labor in India. What happened?
BANKS: Chase and Bank of America outsource customer service jobs to the Philippines. (Most banks do this now as a common practice.) This is really a shytty thing because it's bad enough identity theft is bad in America but how much safer would you feel having to give your social security number, address, and other personal information to someone in another part of the world? It happened to a friend of mine who applied for a Chase credit card with a Philippino woman over the phone, and three weeks later, Chase had no record of my friend's credit application. She said she was on the phone with this woman for about an hour, and mainly repeating, over and over again what she told her. Now, she's worried and wondering who she gave her personal information to and what will happen to her credit (she's pulling all her credit reports from all the reporting agencies). Chase has a hand's off approach to the whole thing. They could care less even though they are the ones who directed my friend to call this woman in the Philippines by making it their customer service center. THIS IS SOMETHING BIG THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED ABOUT. WHO ARE WE GIVING OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO WHEN WE CALL A SO-CALLED AMERICAN COMPANY BUT END UP ON THE PHONE WITH SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS ANOTHER LANGUAGE AND VERY POOR ENGLISH AND IS MOST LIKELY OPERATING FROM SOME MAKESHIFT ROOM IN ANOTHER PART OF THE WORLD? BANKING DEREGULATION ONLY WORKS FOR RICH GUYS AND CAPITALIST GLUTS.
IBM sent thousands of American jobs to India. Colgate Palmolive did the same thing. Although Siemens ICN is a German company, they make a ton of their money here in America and from American consumers, but their plans for America included importing Indians to do the work here. Americans even had to train their Indian replacements in order to receive severance pay, read about "One man's crusade against outsourcing American jobs."
You guys might want to hook up to other media inside and outside of the U.S., especially when sometimes you can't get credible information or just reporting of the news rather than unique spins. Try: the UK's Guardian Unlimited.
Here's the BBC news: Click here.
Here's NPR: Click here.
Here's C-SPAN: Click here.
|
|
|
