Blogs For Victory

Keeping in mind our great love for our fellow free people of India, we still must be concerned about this, and work to assist the Indians in paying more than lip service to religious pluralism:

Citing concerns about Hindu extremists, Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, India has canceled many of the Christmas festivities in his north Indian diocese.

One of the canceled festivities is the annual Christmas ‘Dance Drama,’ whose celebration on the steps of the cathedral of Lucknow City is typically attended by more than 50,000 people, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) reports.

The dance’s performers include seminarians and novice religious sisters and brothers. Drawing heavily on local culture, the dance drama reenacts Scriptural texts from throughout the Bible with a concentration upon the Nativity.

The two open-air performances of the dance attract a mostly non-Christian audience to St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Lucknow, a majority Hindu city with a 20 percent Muslim population. The event is a key means of outreach in the city of three million, of whom only 4,000 are Catholics.

In further changes to Christmas plans, Bishop Mathias decided not invite the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state, the Governor of Lucknow, the chief justice and other dignitaries to an event of carols, brief speeches, and a meal.

The bishop has also called off a Christmas Day gathering for around 15 priests from Lucknow and another celebration involving clergy and religious from throughout the diocese that was planned for December 30.

Father Ignatius D’Souza, the Diocese of Lucknow’s vicar general, acknowledged that people would be disappointed by the cancelations. However, he reported that an ordinary exhibition of the Christmas story will continue in the cathedral compound and said people were welcome to enter and light a candle according to the local custom.

Father D’Souza explained the decision to cancel the events, saying:

“We are concerned about fundamentalist activity. The extremists’ strategy is very long term and they might see our diocesan Christmas activities as an opportunity to take action.”

From what I can tell, there is an element of Hindu extremists who see the growing Christian Church in India as a threat to India’s social structure, especially the reliance some in India place on a class of “untouchables” to provide cheap labor. People only remain “untouchable” as long as they subscribe to the Hindu theology – once converted to Christianity, the former untouchable might still be despised, but he’ll no longer be servile.

Along with the vital message of Christ, Christians are bringing to the poor of India something they’ve always lacked – education, health care and hope for a better life. The Indian government, to its credit, has done much to alleviate the grinding poverty so many Indians live in, as well as accord genuine political rights to the lower classes – but India is a large country with a huge population and not a lot of monetary resources. There’s only so much a government can do. And so in has stepped Christianity – and to the good. But along with change, comes fear amongst those who benefit from the current social structure. Its an age-old story, and we here in America experienced it as recently as the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.

India has about 24 million Christians – about 2.3% of India’s population, making it India’s third largest religious denomination (though vastly smaller than the Hindu and Moslem religions). The fright among some in India is caused by the rapid growth of Christianity (in this 2005 article, the growth is called “alarmingly high”). Exact figures are hard to come by, but it would appear that a 20% annual growth rate for Christianity is plausible, with conversions making up a large proportion of that growth. You just have to do the math – 24 million this year, 28 million next year, 33 million the year after. Not too long before Christians will make up 10% or more of the Indian population…and that is the level where you no longer remain a supplicant for toleration, but a group demanding equality. Given that Indian Christians still have large families, don’t engage in abortion (especially the horrific sex-selection abortions ever more common amongst Hindu families) and generally tend to that social stability which leads to population growth, one can see where Hindus who like the social dispensation they’ve lived under for a thousand years or more might get disturbed.

But toleration and equality there must be, if India is to take its rightful place in the world. Any actions we take must be taken with care – we don’t want to inflame anti-Christian sentiment, but we must work steadily and persistently with the Indian government to improve the lot of Christians in India.

Moving aside for a moment from Blago, Obama and sundry Illinois issues, we still have Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-Tax Evasion) to concern ourselves with:

The House ethics committee is expanding an investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The ethics panel issued a statement Tuesday saying it had voted to expand an already far-ranging probe into the New York Democrat to examine whether he protected an oil drilling company from a big tax bill when the head of that company pledged a $1 million donation to a college center named after the congressman.

The move means the Rangel inquiry will likely stretch well past early January, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had previously said she expected the matter to be resolved.

Republicans have called for Rangel to step down from his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means panel during the investigation. The expanding investigation means the ethics cloud hanging over Rangel is likely to follow him and Democratic leaders into the next Congress as they seek to pass major stimulus legislation and buoy the sinking economy.

Naturally, Rangel should step down – and just as naturally, he won’t. Not unless his fellow Democrats start to feel that his continuing as Chairman harms their chances in 2010. And given how convinced the Democrats are that they’ve won a new 60-year stretch of power, my guess is that the reality of the situation will escape the Democrats for a while, and perhaps right on in to the 2010 mid-terms.

Remember, Democrats, the ball is entirely in your court – we’ve got a semi-ability to filibuster a bit in the Senate, but for at least the next two years, America will dance to your tune. Now, you have a chance to really cement your victory and do some good things for America…but you’re first going to have to ditch your corrupt members. Your problem is that your corrupt members are at or near the top – its not like Pelosi is pure as wind-driven snow here, ya know? I know, its rather hard – some of the most corrupt members (Rangel, eg) have been your most reliably liberal votes…but honesty is the best policy. On the other hand, the best thing for the GOP is for you Democrats to just keep being Democrats – the people were mighty turned off by us, and we deserved our defeat…but unless you’ve got a radical makeover in your plans, the people will swiftly get even more turned off by you.

First, IL Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on corruption charges.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents on federal corruption charges Tuesday morning.

Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to Frank Bochte of the FBI. Both were transported to FBI headquarters in Chicago.

In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himseld as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.

Another charge alleges Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of him in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.

The indictment.

And, back in October, a grand jury issued subpoenas on the Obama/Rezko land deal.

A former Illinois bank official, now claiming whistleblower status, says bank officials replaced a loan reappraisal that he prepared for a Chicago property that was purchased by the wife of now-convicted felon Tony Rezko, part of which was later sold to next-door neighbor Barack Obama.

In a complaint filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Kenneth J. Connor said that his reappraisal of Rita Rezko’s property was replaced with a higher one and that he was fired when he questioned the document.

Mr. Connor, a real estate and commercial credit analyst at the Mutual Bank Corp. in Chicago, also noted in the complaint that the bank received a grand jury subpoena in October 2006 requiring it to produce information concerning Mrs. Rezko’s purchase, including the bank’s files on the property.

The complaint also said that the grand jury wanted information on Mrs. Rezko’s checking account and loan file and that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) had audited the Rezko file – although Mr. Connor’s lower reappraisal had been replaced with a higher amount.

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson has called on Barack Obama to “uphold his pledge of expanded transparency and release any records of discussions between the Obama-Biden transition office and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich regarding the appointment of Obama’s successor to the United States Senate.”

UPDATE: Obama talked to Blagojevich about Senate replacement

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Democrats go into full damage control mode.

Tonight We’ll be talking about to Top Conservatives on Twitter, IL Governor Rod Blagojevich, and more!

The news story:

As gun sales shoot up around the country, President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that gun-owning Americans do not need to rush out and stock up before he is sworn in next month.

“I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment,” Obama said at a news conference. “Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven’t indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word.”

But National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said it’s not Obama’s words — but his legislative track record — that has gun-buyers flocking to the stores.

“Prior to his campaign for president, his record as a state legislator and as a U.S. Senator shows he voted for the most stringent forms of gun control, the most Draconian legislation, gun bans, ammunition bans and even an increase in federal excise taxes up to 500 percent for every gun and firearm sold,” Arulanandam said.

Obama answered “yes” in 1996 to a questionnaire from an Illinois group on whether he supported a handgun ban. But he later said a staffer filled out that answer and he did not support a ban.

I’ve never owned a gun, but there still is that nagging feeling that I should have a closet full of guns by January 20th, just in case. I won’t, of course – but I’m not exactly prepared to take Obama at his word. This doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s telling the truth – could be that Obama realizes that the issue is a loser and that the only people who ever cared strongly about gun control laws were rich, white liberals who could usually obtain concealed carry permits if they felt the need. On the other hand, when Obama says “lawful”, you want clarification – realizing that he’s a lawyer who has had some difficulty with the truth (such as his claim that an aide incorrectly filled out the gun control question).

There is really nothing Obama can say which will make gun owners feel confident that there isn’t a gun control ordinance up his sleeve somewhere, just waiting for the exploitable tragedy in order for it to be rammed home in a fit of national emotion. The proof, here, really will be in the pudding – if Obama refrains from trying to push gun control, then at the end of his four or eight years, we’ll be able to assert stoutly that he can be taken at his word on gun control, but until such time eternal vigilance will the price of liberty, and the right to bear arms.

And the really sad thing is that while she helps kill babies – including disproportionate numbers of female babies – she’ll think she’s advancing human rights:

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has caused concern among pro-life leaders due to her past international advocacy for permissive abortion laws. Her appointment could foreshadow changes in U.S. policy at the U.N. concerning the rights of the unborn.

According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), Critics claim that Sen. Clinton, who was First Lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s presidency, had a major voice in the U.N. social policy of the Clinton administration. Her influence, encompassing several major U.N. conferences, included her participation at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

There, Sen. Clinton coined the phrase “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.” The slogan became a rallying cry for a right to abortion.

Sen. Clinton’s work with former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, the Undersecretary for Global Affairs in the Clinton State Department, sought to broaden access to abortion.

It does still flabbergast – the knowledge that some people think that death is a rational answer to a pregnancy. I mean, think about it – Hillary Clinton (and Barack Obama, for that matter) are decent people; wouldn’t harm a fly, either of them. But in service of leftwing political goals they likely only dimly understand, they’ll push hard – in the aggregate – for abortion around the globe. Birth rates are falling around the world, there is a huge imbalance between men and women in China and India due to sex-selection abortion, Europe’s population is dying out…and still we kill our unborn children.

This is the sad result of the GOP not getting solidly behind John McCain – sure, he wasn’t the perfect candidate, but he wouldn’t advance the culture of death as Obama will. Elections do have consequences, and one of the consequences of this election is that the United States will assist in procuring abortions.

I guess that helping Obama win might be the last damage the MSM does:

Tribune Co., the owner of the Los Angeles Times, KTLA Channel 5 and dozens of other daily newspapers and television stations across the country, filed Monday for bankruptcy protection from creditors, in the latest indication of deteriorating economics for the news business.

The company’s ills, which stem principally from declining advertising revenues…

Pity it can’t be made to die off faster – the sooner these liberal dinosaurs pass from the scene the sooner truth will dominate lies.

A match made in the nether regions:

Academic departments at leading universities in Northern California, including UC Berkeley and Santa Clara University, have recently begun co-sponsoring events with South Bay Mobilization (SBM), a group associated with Hamas.

While South Bay Mobilization is not the only organization in the Bay Area that has ties to Hamas through the activities of some of its leaders and/or members, it has taken a leading role on university campuses throughout the Bay Area. Members of South Bay have had luncheons with Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, and have accepted medals from him in a highly propagandistic manner.

Members of South Bay Mobilization have also been linked to the Free Gaza Movement, which sailed to the Gaza Strip from Cyprus in August 2008. Therefore, South Bay Mobilization’s support for the Free Gaza Movement also constitutes support of Hamas and its aims, and is equivalent to an endorsement of terror, murder, and genocide.

The Free Gaza group had been invited to the Gaza Strip by Bassem Naim, the minister of youth and sport of the genocidal terrorist group Hamas. Naim had recently been denied entry into Europe because of his terrorist affiliation. Furthermore, Hamas is responsible for the murders of hundreds of innocent civilians…

…According to the U.S. State Department, it is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Representatives and members of a designated foreign terrorist organization, if they are non-citizens, are barred from the country. In certain circumstances, individuals may even be removed from the United States.

In addition to potentially violating U.S. laws which forbid contact with terrorist organizations — Hamas being among the world’s most notorious — Free Gaza members also may have violated the U.S. Neutrality Act by illegally raising money in California to bankroll two boats which they sailed into Gaza. This incident was known as the “Gaza boat incident.”

Lenin had it that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope necessary to hang them – our lefties are going a step further: they will donate the rope to the Islamists who will hang them. To be as blind as these American academics takes an act of will – I mean, they must really have to work at it to be so entirely ignorant of what is going on with Hamas in Gaza. Its not like you can’t look up “hamas kill” on Google, ya know? The search comes back with 2.9 million entries – certainly somewhere in there is sufficient data, even if one is anti-Israel, to come to the conclusion that Hamas is a criminal conspiracy to rob and murder.

And yet, there they go – inviting Hamas criminals to speak, donating to Hamas, helping Hamas to undermine not only Israel, but all those elements in the Palestinian population which would prefer a peace with Israel to Israel’s destruction (the goal of Hamas – and all you have to do is look it up to find this out, too…they aren’t coy about it at all). Murder, robbery and desecration of Christian and Jewish holy sites aside, Hamas is of the opinion that it is the duty of the non-Moslem to be servile to Moslems. We’re supposed to be their slaves, or convert to their ways – one or the other, Hamas has no middle ground between Slave and Islamist.

What profit is there in having such people around? To hear their point of view? What for? Does anyone want to hear the position of other bloodthirsty criminal conspiracies? All points of view are not of equal worth – but as Hamas’ point of view is anti-Semitic and anti-American (as well as anti-European, anti-Christian, anti-You Name It), leftists in America hold their point of view to be uniquely valuable.

Monumentally stupid – and the saddest part about it is that we who are on the right will have to expend our blood and treasure to defend the right of these fools to undermine those who defend them.

The horrific murder of Jews during the Mumbai Massacre illustrates the continuing problem of murderous anti-Semitism, but I think it necessary to also point out that day by day, around the world, Christians are suffering persecution for their faith:

Samuel Masih was a simple street cleaner. One day, while cleaning a garden in Lahore, the twenty-seven-year-old Pakistani Catholic was accused of deliberately piling garbage against the wall of a mosque. He was arrested and thrown in jail, where he was repeatedly tortured for his faith. While being treated for tuberculosis, which he contracted in prison, a police constable decided to earn a place in Janna’ (Paradise) by killing him with a brick-cutting hammer.

Thousands of miles away, on a beautiful mid-August day, thirty-two-year-old Fr. Jesus Adrian Sanchez was giving religious instruction at a school in the rural area of Chaparral (Tolima), Colombia. An armed man burst into the classroom, ordered him outside, and shot him dead.

Deep in the Brazilian rainforest, a seventy-three-year-old Sister of Notre Dame, Dorothy Stang, was used to living among people who wanted her dead. She had long been trying to protect peasant laborers from exploitation by logging firms and ranchers. One day, while walking to a meeting of poor farmers near the town of Anapu in the western Brazilian state of Parà, two armed men intercepted her on the path. She knew what they were there to do. Taking out her Bible, she began reading to them and, for a precious few minutes, they listened before opening fire. Sr. Stang was shot six times in the head, throat, and body.

These are only three of the more than 100 Catholics who bear the unique distinction of being the first martyrs of the twenty-first century.

According to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the official martyrology contains the names of 132 Catholics who have died for the faith since 2001. But this is not a complete list. Its 2005 report acknowledges that there are “many more possible ‘unknown soldiers of the faith’ in remote corners of the planet whose deaths may never be reported.”

Dying for Christ seems almost surreal to most Westerners. We live in a part of the world where Christianity rarely makes the news unless it is to be mocked or defamed. Otherwise, the media is strangely silent about modern Christian martyrdom. “Three things distinguish anti-Christian persecution and discrimination around the world,” said Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “First, it’s ugly. Second, it’s growing. And third, the mass media generally ignore or downplay its gravity.”

And that, also, doesn’t seem to count the large number of Protestant Christians who also suffer, and at times die, for their faith. While anti-Christians in the West concentrate on the crimes of Christians past (real and imagined), the fact that Christians are dying all the time merely for being Christian escapes notice. It is also, as noted above, something outside our frame of reference – we don’t know what to do with such information. Young liberals in the United States like to play at being rebels – tattoo’d and pierced and shouting obscenities, they think of themselves as being in the mold of Thomas Jefferson…the truth, of course, is that most of these youngsters would instantly kneel if someone really put them to the test of their convictions. A real rebel is someone who obeys the laws and is, indeed, a model citizen – but one who will not surrender on the crucial matters. For a martyr, you can take his money, take his property, take his physical freedom and degrade him in any manner you like – a true Christian will endure this with good cheer…but the moment you try to make a Christian abjure his faith, that is when the martyr kindly and politely and with love in his heart, refuses.

Fools in the west also like to think of Christians as being the weak – weak minded and weak willed people who use God as a crutch to mask their own failures and insecurities. The reality is that it is the non-believers who are weak – weak in mind and weak in will. Go tell the Christians of Darfur, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, China, North Korea, etc that they are weak and you are strong, as you sit safe and secure in the United States.

In this Christmas season, we must keep in mind those among us who don’t break faith – be they the soldier on patrol in Afghanistan or the humble missionary bringing a bit of food to an unknown village in the backwaters of the world. It is these people who refuse to be broken and who refuse to follow the siren song of the modern world with its greed, cruelty, inanity and moral flabbiness who keep our society going. One missionary working among the poor of Liberia is worth 1,000 latte-sipping slackers coordinating the next anti-globalization protest in terms of what use they are to the world.

It is also important for those who would try to make Christmas non-Christian – those who war upon the deeply religious nature of Christmas – to understand what they are trifling with. You are not just messing with a holiday, but with the fundamental aspect of a faith which still commands enough love and loyalty to convince people that death is better than apostasy. We’re not mad that someone wants to tear down the Nativity scene – we’re mad that someone would have so little respect for those of faith that they’d gratuitously insult the faithful in such a manner.

A little respect goes a long way – and so the next time you run down your list of denigrations of Christianity, perhaps you could also run down the list of those who have died this year and in the past in service of God and their fellow man through their faith.

It’s about time.

Political newcomer Anh “Joseph” Cao, a Republican, has beaten nine-term incumbent William Jefferson, a Democrat, in the 2nd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.

With 79 percent of the district’s 492 precincts reporting, Cao, a Venetian Isles attorney who has enjoyed strong backing from local and national GOP organizations, is leading 53 percent to 43 percent over Jefferson. Green Party candidate Malik Rahim has 3 percent, while Libertarian Gregory Kahn is trailing with less than 1 percent.

The district, which was drawn to give African Americans an electoral advantage, covers most of New Orleans, most of Jefferson Parish’s West Bank and parts of south Kenner. About two-thirds of the district’s voters are registered as Democrats.

It is a good day when a corrupt Democrat finally gets defeated… one down… a lot more to go.
Next up… trial and conviction.

I think a celebratory glass of Cabernet Sauvignon is in order.

UPDATE: How sweet it is.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Also noted is that the Democrats seem to have lost the other runoff House election in Louisiana. The reason does appear to be lower-than-necessary black turnout – one wonders that now there’s a black man to be in the White House will black turnout drop off heavily for all the special and off-year elections? For the 2010 mid-terms? The test will be in next year’s Virginia governors race.