They hate our freedoms...

TGIF, PDX!

TGIF. It was an expression before it became a resaurant/bar chain. Ubiquifood. Can you tell the difference between Applebee's, Chili's, Chevy's and Red Robin?

THOF. "They hate our freedoms." That's what former Pres. Bush often said about why the US was attacked by terrorists. Having not just crawled out from under a rock, having lived a few places besides here, and having read a little bit of history, I could never keep a straight face when I heard George W. say that. I think it had more to do with how the West has messed around in the other parts of the world.

You can't explain the clash of a Medieval world view with ours and a bunch of ugly history of Western inteventions on the basis of other people's ideas about women's suffrage or whether people of color are actually human or not. After all, we've been pretty doggone confused about these things ourselves here in Consumerland.

THOF. Ain't the question. Question is, do we? As in, "Do we hate our freedoms?" Do we love them enough to actually exercise them? Since that's what the Afghan and Iraq wars were supposed to be about, are we actually living like free people? When we say that the young (mostly) troops died in the deserts and remote mountains of the Middle East and Central Asia to keep us free, do we really mean that? Do we mean it enough to lift a finger?

When was your right to vote, speak, read, write, associate or worship put into jeopardy by Saddam Hussein? The Taliban? Al Qaeda?

When did you last exercise one of these rights? If you tell me last November I may become ill.

This morning I again contacted all three of my (our) representatives in Congress. It took me 11 minutes to send a two-paragraph original message to all three of them. I started a week ago. I've been doing it every day this week. "Nationalize the banks," I say. "Get going. The longer we wait, the more our economy slows, the more people suffer, the longer we delay a turnaround. The more unprepared and unable we are to meet the challenges of a future, crowded world. Call an emergency summit on the economy. Today."

I've told my reps that if there is no action this week to make things better I will contact them 10 times a day next week, 100 times a day the week after. Don't know if I can do it, but silence is not an option.

No military on earth can keep us free if we refuse to be, if we refuse to act like free people.

11 minutes. That's all it took. Faster typists with faster computers could easily do it in about five. How hard is that?

THOF? BS!

The question still is, do we?

Shalom,

Pastor Roger