The Naked Communist

The point of the recent recitation, I’m guessing, was to show how much of a Communist/socialist country the United States has become.

One of the lowlights of an otherwise pleasant Thanksgiving was when one of my relatives, in whose home we were all staying for a couple of nights, decided to read to us the list of 45 goals of the Communist party as stated in the book The Naked Communist, “written in 1958 by conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist Cleon Skousen.” The goals were read into the Congressional Record in 1963. There are also YouTube videos about this, but I won’t link to them.

The point of the recent recitation, I’m guessing, was to show how much of a Communist/socialist country the United States has become. For instance, 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. has happened – aha! There are those who have argued that 15 – Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States – has taken place, and you can guess which party. Likewise, the so-called liberal press (20), social welfare program (32), et al. Add to that some items that many people might agree with has happened to some degree (25 – changes in morality) and you have an apparently prescient document that lives a half-century later in some circles.

Here’s the thing: I KNEW there would be some religious/political provocation that would take place before we got there. I had previously vowed: “Don’t engage. Don’t engage.” But it was tough, really tough; the hole in my lower lip, where I had been biting it, has only recently begun to heal. Not sure that it was the right decision either; if/when it comes up again, and it surely will, I’ll have to decide then.

I was most pleased, though, by my mother-in-law, who, in response to a comment about how difficult it is to follow God’s law perfectly, noted an American Indian tradition to put deliberate imperfections in their crafts because only God is perfect. Suggesting that a Native American deity is somehow equivalent to THE God was quite an…interesting response in this setting.

35 iff

Just like civil rights activists were firehosed, beaten and even killed, it almost always takes struggle before a modicum of justice can be achieved.

 

Psalm 90:10 in the King James Version reads, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they are fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

It occurred to me that Matthew Sheperd would have been 35 today – half of three score and ten – had he not been crucified on October 7, 1998. The peculiar thing about his death is that it always seems to take a tragedy for attitudes and behaviors to change. There are several activities the Matthew Shepard Foundation is involved with, including support for The Laramie Project, a play that has “become a powerful tool for communities to discuss and explore how hate impacts every part of their society.”

Just like civil rights activists were firehosed, beaten, and even killed, it almost always takes struggle before a modicum of justice can be achieved. Not incidentally, it was 56 years ago today that Rosa Parks sat on a bus in Birmingham, Alabama, and ended up getting arrested. This led to the yearlong boycott, which, along with court remedies, helped change the course of segregation – not all at once, but just a little bit at a time.

It’s also World AIDS Day. Here are CDC Statistics and UN data, and AVERT projects. The good news is that more people are living with, rather than dying from, AIDS, but more still needs to be done.

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