Potent words

Secular Moral Values

Howard L. Simon, head of Florida ACLU, in The Miami Herald:

"Separation of church and state is not the invention of ACLU lawyers or tyrannical judges, as Robertson's disciples like to say. It is the bedrock constitutional principle that has given America more religious freedom and more religious diversity than any other country... The Bible taught as history is probably an inept attempt by the school boards to instill character and moral values in young people. Rich goal, wrong method! America has a rich tradition of secular moral values that the public schools should be transmitting to the next generation."

Duped By Nazis

Maurice Papon, 87-year-old former Cabinet Minister of France, at a trial in Bordeaux, France:

"I deny responsibility of deporting 444 Jews, including 81 children, on August 26,1944, to Drancy, last stop before Auschwitz death camp. We did not believe the Germans would do what they did. You may condemn me for unjustified optimism. We have been deceived by the Germans. Our whole relationship with the Germans was tainted with hypocrisy. If naivete is a crime, then I committed the crime of naivete."

Bad Taste, Breaking First Amendment

Frank Rich, N.Y. Times News Service:

"Another new study conducted by the University of Michigan, shows that weekly worship in the United States exceeds that in any other industrialized nation. We worship more than twice as often as the French, nearly twice as much as the British... religion ain't broke in America, you would have to wonder why politicians, men of something other than the cloth, would want to fix it. Yet this is what a large pack of them is intent on doing... A misnamed `Religious Freedom Amendment' to the Constitution will permit coercive public school prayers. The school voucher brigade will push to funnel public money into parochial schools. Missouri Senator John Ashcroft, aspiring presidential candidate of the religious right, is hellbent on a `charitable choice' scheme that would pour government funds into religious social service programs... Is nothing, not even good taste, sacred? For those who have faith in the First Amendment, the argument against all these efforts to blur the separation of church and state is clear enough."

The Meaning of Revolution

The Nation Magazine's comment:

"For the first time... The New York Times... did not see fit to print any news from Russia on the anniversary of its 1917 Revolution... The Russian national press was filled with a fascinating, soul-searching discussion of the meaning of the Revolution for the country's past and present. It also pub lished opinion polls showing that popular esteem for 1917 has grown in recent years and that a clear plurality of Russians continues to have anticapitalist, socialist views."

Capitalism

The Nation magazine in an editorial titled "Underground Economy":

"In Washington, President Clinton brags about what he calls 'the strongest American economy in a generation.' On Wall Street, bonuses promise to break all records... The American belief in sharing with others and caring for one another is in danger of being lost, [Senator Ted Kennedy said, `replaced by an ominous new ethic that challenges each of us to ask only what we can do for ourselves.' Here are some of the under-reported numbers: Poverty is increasing... The working poor are losing ground... Income inequality is increasing... More are unprepared for disaster... Yet while all this is happening, we are fed a diet of stories of almost unimaginable greed and unconscionable wealth... Poverty, to the conservative mind, is a condition of capitalism-not a problem."

'On This Earth'

The Rev. Arthur Dobrin in Dialogue, American Ethical Union: Ethical Humanism has a faith in the improvability of the human condition through personal and community efforts. In this way, the good person is a person learning to become more sensitive to the joy and suffering of others. Ethical Humanism believes that meaning and purpose are derived from acts of loving-kindness and that comfort, solace, and support are ultimately found here, on this earth, in community."

Accurate Information?

Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Telegram and Creators Syndicatee:

Rupert Murdoch, ruthless media baron, the man who used to insist that his newspaper use the words `rape,' `stab,' or 'kill' in front page headlines a required number of times a week will be inducted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II... One of the most troubling developments in the eternal problem of how to get accurate information in this world is the growth of `corporate science'-research paid for by corporations and special interests that have a monetary stake in the outcome of the research."

Military Aid For Stronger Democracies?

Foreign Policy In Focus, P.O. Box 4506, Albuquerque, N.M. 87196: "Opponents question how the transfer of sophisticated military aircraft will promote stronger democracies, foster civilian control of the military, or continue trends of economic growth and regional independence... These countries need to be investing their limited resources on production for local and export markets as well as in physical infrastructure and social services such as health care and education."

Cuba and the Pope

Jack R. Payton, Diplomatic editor, St. Petersburg Times:

"As a reporter in Rome, I covered the first four years of John Paul's papacy after he was elected in 1978 and accompanied him on 12 of his early international voyages... Popes aren't like other people... he can speak on matters of faith with what the church deems infallibility, or the absolute inability to be wrong... No one should have been surprised when John Paul held the church line against artificial birth control, the ordination of women priests, and, most of all against abortion... Castro was schooled early in Roman Catholic theology, graduating from Roman Catholic secondary schools and college and going on to earn a law degree... Much later he declared Cuba an atheist nation... He really was convinced that religion was the opiate of the masses and had no place in Cuba. And he really believed that-and may still believe-that a society really can be organized on the communist principle of `From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."'

Cuba

William Raspberry, Washington Post:

"The embargo against Cuba's Fidel Castro simply makes no sense. If it was going to bring down that hated Communist, surely we would have seen some signs of it after 35 years. The only Cubans who hate Castro enough to do him in are in South Florida, where they wield power as a single-issue voting block... Clinton, who cannot as president unilaterally change our legislated policy, might still have found a way to respond to the pope's plea for change both in both Washington and Havana. But when you're busy being horse-whipped..."

Corporate Clout

Gore Vidal on J.F.K. in The New Yorker December 1, 1997:

"Put bluntly, who collects what money from whom in order to spend on what is all there is to politics, and in a serious country should be the central preoccupation of the media. It is also a very interesting subject, at least to those who pay taxes, which in this country means the folks at home, not the conglomerates that own everything. (Taxes on corporate profits once provided the government with more than forty percent of its revenue-almost as much as the personal income tax provided-but taxes on corporate profits today contribute a little over twelve percent.) During Kennedy's three-year administration, he increased the defense budget of the Eisenhower years by seventeen billion dollars. This was one of the biggest, quickest increases in our history. This was- is-the story that ought to have been covered. Unfortunately, politics is the last thing a government like ours wants us to know about. So how do they divert us from the delicate subject?"

Copyright The Human Quest Mar/Apr 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved