Vote for Joe

The unemployment figures came out this morning, smashing the previous record in America by a lot. The previous record for a month: 700,000. This report: 3.3 million! An economics professor from New York University said this morning during an interview: “This is an unprecedented economic contraction… and we don’t want to kill the economy.” Uh, I would at least partially differ. Our campaign platform calls for simplifying and jacking down our economy considerably. For instance, we need to deemphasize (easy money) Wall Street financial speculation, complicated financial instruments, and extraneous “paper shuffling” jobs in general in America. In tandem, we would propose initial debt free stimulus to revive small town and big city neighborhood economies. In addition, using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, we would break up the Wal-Marts, Targets, Lowe’s… as monopolies, as we would break up big national banks, and big corporate farms. To the latter, as an example, we would provide incentives to sub-divide these farms and stimulate small scale organic farms that are much more labor intensive. This would provide, for instance, jobs that are lost when a lot of non-essential “paper shuffling” jobs disappear. This corona virus crisis, this economic contraction, is allowing for a lot of the dross to be cleared from what has become, in large part, a bloated, convoluted economic system. Again, spiritual commons sense dictates that we simplify the system and go back to a decentralized orientation (“local production for local consumption”) that, for one, strengthens bonds in community. This will also cut down tremendously on transport carbon dioxide emissions. And it will “flatten the curve” (Where have I heard that phrase before?) on income inequality in the country, as some of those relatively meaningless professional jobs — that nonetheless pay well — go away. Note: For a look at our Economic Position that, I contend, aligns way more with what God probably wants for society, see…

Euthanasia is creeping more and more into the countries of the world. Yet we’re not God. God is. God is the “author of life.” He determines the span between conception and natural death. We don’t. When we do (abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide…), we are putting our eternal souls at tremendous risk. The Catholic Church unequivocally teaches that, as an example, euthanasia is a “grave sin.” Yet people participate in it directly, or by voting for, say, politicians who back it (as part of what Pope John Paul II called “The Culture of Death” in America). Of course, some of the people who back the concept of euthanasia would never use it in regard to their loved ones. And then here comes this coronavirus pandemic putting the elderly, specifically, at risk all over the world. And wouldn’t you know, with hospitals being overwhelmed with elderly patients, doctors being forced to do “triage,” are now, day in and day out, having to make decisions about who they are going to allow to die — including, perhaps, the grandparents, mothers, fathers… of now tremendously anguished grandchildren, sons, daughters… who have, maybe over the years, backed euthanasia. Hopefully what’s going on now will inspire them to change their minds about this issue before it’s too late. Both for more elderly in the cross hairs of euthanasia, and before it’s too late for their own souls. For our campaign’s stance on euthanasia, and “Life Issues” in general, see…

One of the readings at the Masses this weekend was Hosea 6:2 where the prophet, in essence, tells the Israelites that God has, indeed, “smitten” them (read: “chastises” them), but in “two days” He will help them rebound. In the livestream Mass I was watching out of Franciscan University, the priest says that, of course, the coronavirus is a “chastisement from God.” And like the Israelites of old, we need to figure that out, repent, and collectively come back to God so He helps us spiritually heal. Part of what we need to ‘figure out,’ the priest said (among many things), is that almost every country on the planet now allows abortion. What’s more, country after country is moving toward accepting euthanasia as well. These two things, as the Catholic Church for example teaches, are totally antithetical to God’s Natural Order. Beyond these glaring spiritual wrongs, California’s Alex Gomez has ‘figured it out’ in a more generalized, yet right on the mark, way as well. He posts that we had lapsed into “worshipping”: athletes, musicians, actors, materialism… So what’s happened? Mr. Gomez notes that God has closed the sports arenas, concert halls, theaters, and is collapsing the stock market… Mr. Gomez ends with: “Maybe we don’t need a vaccine. Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and undertake a personal revival where we focus on the only thing that really matters in this world. Jesus.” Note: I’d like to think our whole campaign platform, indeed, revolves around Jesus, the things He taught, and how that applies to our contemporary world. See…

What you’re looking at here is a tremendous moral issue with significant spiritual ramifications for most of us. This is a “confinement farm” that has become state-of-the-art in American agriculture these days — representing the far end of the “greed continuum,” both for big farm owners and the consumers as well. Instead of naturally grazing, these animals are raised in crowded ‘confinement’ pens like this for their entire lives. This maximizes profits for the farmers (and other supply side parts of the agriculture industry), and provides us, the consumers, with relatively cheap meat. All the humans are making out on this, right? Wrong. That is if they’re concerned about their souls. For instance, the Catholic Rural Life Association, Pope John Paul II (encyclical: “The Ecological Crisis (A Common Responsibility)”, and a host of moral theologians, see the unethical treatment of animals as, just that, “unethical.” And here’s just one of many dynamics with this… Confinement like this is a breeding ground for bacteria, viruses (oops, there’s that word again) and diseases in general. So the animals (cows, chickens, pigs…) are pumped full of antibiotics. Which, well, is not only bad for the animals, but we end up eating these toxic chemicals as well, in combination with ingesting the toxic steroids that are pumped into the same animals to get them to grow quicker. Do we actually think cancer is showing up in our systems just out of the blue? So now, here comes a coronavirus at us that, well, no antibiotic will stop. Hmm. Note: To look at an agricultural paradigm/platform (mine) not driven by greed at any level, see… Note: Americans also need to be tremendously reassessing how much meat we’re eating with, so many in the Third World who are tremendously malnourished, which will be for another post.

In the past 100 years, or so, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been showing up in apparitions all over the world with a set of urgent messages for mankind. (A significant number of these have, by the way, been “Catholic Church approved.”) The overarching message is that we have moved squarely into the end time events predicted in the Bible’s “Book of Revelation.” As an example, Mary reportedly told Fr. Stefano Gobi, an Italian priest, that one of the “plagues” talked about in Revelation is: cancer. Think about it. Just in our country alone, one in three people now get cancer in a lifetime. The reason? Simple. We’re taking carcinogenic material into our systems from man made sources. To grow more food faster, to increase farming profit margins, Monsanto (Monsatan?) coffers, and such, we’re pumping all kinds of potentially carcinogenic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers into the crops. [During an interview with David Orr, who is head of Oberlin College’s Environmental Science Department, he told me these chemicals are creating toxic time bombs in our systems that are exploding into things like, that’s right: cancer.] What’s more, tail pipe emissions have carcinogenic material. Cleaning products have carcinogenic materials. And on, and on… Race for the Cure? Sure. But common sense says that: WE STOP USING STUFF THAT CAUSES CANCER IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even if that’s going to mean some paradigm shifts (“grow organic,” as an example), and lifestyle changes in general (way less driving). You know, people actually used to clean with vinegar and water. Seriously. Time to realign. Note: For a look at part of the shift our administration would push for in the American agricultural world, including organic growing across the board, see…