Fellow secularists, below is an excerpt from an article by Martin Peretz, publisher/editor of the weekly New Republic. He’s a dead-end Zionist, but I haven’t known him to make up quotes.
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Martin Peretz, “Exercised About Kerry,” NY Sun, 10/27/04
For his part, Mr. Kerry grabs at any showy idea to demonstrate his sense of urgency. As a response to militant Islam and to encourage moderate Muslims, the presidential aspirant proposes that “the great religious figures of the planet” – he mentioned the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Dalai Lama – hold a summit.
To do exactly…what?
“To begin to help the world to see the ways in which Islam is not, in fact, a threat,” Mr. Kerry said, “And to isolate those who are, and to give people the strength to be able to come together in a global effort to take away their financing, their freedom to move, their sanctuary, and so forth.”
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As a tourist, I once walked into St. Paul’s in London, when an ecumenical peace prayer began. The majors were all there, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews. They chanted, then filed out. I’ve been to London 11 times, & don’t remember the date of this singular pious ceremony. Or between which wars this mummery occurred. And that is the important point. ‘Been there, done that.’ No amount of ecumenical pronouncements will solve the complex problems of the wider Middle East. Only our action of behalf of equality for the oppressed, Sudanese Blacks, Kurds in Iraq, Iran & Turkey, the Palestinians, Muslims in India, women everywhere, will bring peace.
Kerry’s turn towards the spiritual cosmos actually demonstrates that he has no capacity to solve either American imperialism’s or the region’s crisis. It is yet another example of his contempt for the secularism of Jefferson & Madison, the founders of his party. It is coupled with his call, at this Summer’s African Methodist Episcopal convention, for further involvement of ‘faith-based’ organizations in things the government should be doing on a scientific basis but ain’t, i.e., drug addict clinics, wayward kids institutions, employment training, etc.
Secularists, be warned. If you vote for Kerry & he loses, you will be legitimately ridiculed as wasting your vote on a demagogue, who you knew intended to violate the 1st amendment’s separation of church & state, out of fear of Bush. And, if he wins, you will be legitimately ridiculed as wasting your vote on a demagogue, who you knew intended to violate the 1st amendment’s separation of church & state, out of fear of Bush.
In either case, you can’t tap-dance around the fact that you know that he intends to intertwine religion & state, domestically & internationally. You can’t say that it is OK for your candidate to help tear down the wall of separation, & then claim to champion separation.
Its the same with secularism as with any ideal. You can’t fire up people for it if they know that you voted for its enemy. All that does is give folks the perfect excuse for continuing to vote for its foe. And indeed we can say, without contradiction, that whoever wins the election will be an enemy of separation.
The fight for it can only be won by taking the issue to the people, educating them as to why Jefferson & Madison were so committed to separation. Can you scroll them up to 2004 & have either say, ‘Yes!! I’m voting for Kerry. I don’t care that he intends to further weaken separation.’ Of course not. But if you can’t say that they would vote for Kerry, you can’t vote for him & then pretend that you are defending their principles of separation of religion & state.
LENNI BRENNER is the editor of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis and a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He is presently editing Jefferson & Madison on Separation of Church and State: Writings on Religion and Secularism. It will be published by Barricade Books in late October. He can be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.