FRECKLES

..."And when the cat had kittens out in the hay, one was black and seven were gray, everybody said Freckles, he always got the blame."
-- Early 20th Century children's song

Conservative talk shows have a new book to love. They stand in line to interview the author, Michael S. Rose. At first glance the title is innocuous, it's the fine print below it that really tells what the book is about.

Good Bye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church, really fits right in with the everlasting blame game Republicans have been playing and replaying for years now. But this book aims to titillate the Catholic- Conservative- Rychus- ones because it takes the horror out of the recent headlines about pedophile priests.

It's not the fault of the Church and the Pope at all, Rose claims. The present sexual scandal about predatory priests came about because LIBERALS invaded and took over the seminaries and encouraged homosexuals to enroll. As they were doing this, they discouraged real, God fearing Catholic boys who wanted to be priests from enrolling.

Think about it. We have been told that the incidence of predatory priests is less than 2% of all priests and that the vast majority is decent and good. How then, did a massive take over by liberal homosexuals corrupt the Catholic Church if so few were affected?

Actually, numbers don^Òt really matter. The real problem here is that conservative Catholics are so willing to believe this simply because of the word LIBERAL and it gets their church off the hook. The GOPpers and the media have made the word LIBERAL synonymous with the word DEVIL.

Certainly we've been barraged with conservative pundits blaming our last elected President, Bill Clinton, for everything EVIL that happened in the whole world during his time in office. It should be noted that never do these same pundits ever give him credit for all the GOOD he did as president.

When this topic comes up, they say the GOOD during his presidency was accomplished by the conservative congress. So the drumbeat goes on and on and on.

Terrible fires in the West and the blame for them? Why, the LIBERALS of course! "It is all the fault of those radical liberal environmentalist," quoth one woodland expert, full of his own sense of conservative self-importance and values.

"Those LIBERALS won't let the forests be logged, so of course when a fire starts there is much to burn." Well some of that makes sense but it disregards the fact that logging WAS done -- something called "clear cutting." So many of the fires that are burning now are of brush and young growth.

Those so-called liberal environmentalists were and are working for good forest management that avoids clear cutting and capitulation to the lumber industry. Blaming liberals is the name of the game here and has no relation to the truth.

And just today, a judge in California has declared the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the added words, "under god." You can bet your bippy that this has the rychus ones screaming "liberal judge" at the top of their voices and pixels.

It turns out that the judge is a Republican appointed by Richard Nixon. No matter, it's just ignored in the frenzy to demonize liberals and turn voters against Democrats. The whole pogrom against Martha Stewart is because she is a Democrat and a woman CEO. The one target they can identify in a sea of male, Republican-fat-cat CEOs.

We have got to get our leaders in the House and Senate to respond to this vilification of liberals. They are the only ones that can get media attention. They should come forth often and loudly with the very positive things we have in this country that were instigated by liberals. There are lots of things and they should be pronounced proudly. Here's just a few.

We stand for helping the elderly by Medicare and Social Security. Who do you think has been fostering your right to choose all these years? It was Democrats that introduced programs to help students pay for college. The Constitution has protection for all people but it is the Democrats, the liberals that stand up for the indigent, the weak and oppressed and demand that the Articles are followed.

This 4th of July all liberals, all Democrats should hold their head high, proud to stand for the principles that make this country truly the land of the free. It's long past time for the party stalwarts to stop following meekly in the footsteps of Rosie ODonnell and give full credit, when credit is due, to ALL LIBERALS.

twanda@twanda.org       

2002-026

Copyright 2002 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@twanda.org.