As for the second article, most religions have something like this unless
they are proselytizing and those who proselytize are generally more
transparent. However some do both. They have a hierarchy that is secret
but profess openness. Mormonism is interesting, especially what they have
stolen from the Native American religion, and have a rather strange take on
some of the faiths they lifted their stuff from.
I wouldn't trust any religion to be the theocracy of the nation and consider
any such idea to be the death of America. America was built around the
secular common with the private sector and it's institutions, including
religion, around the common that everyone shares. Religion is the province
of the individual in the government but not an entity itself. I would
point out the Republicans are the ones who've been pushing religion in the
government along with Evangelicals who don't know their history.
Government is the Foundation of the common, strictly the "Secular Common",
and sets the rules for everyone's peacefulness. Small government means that
everyone will be in a predatory relationship with each other. A Democratic
centralized government with a concentric circle of governmental entities
down to the state, county and city level is a fail safe mechanism againsts
the tyranny of any one group including the Mormons. "Elders save the
constitution by making it Mormon." How quaint and kind of stupid.
Anyone who believes that isn't smart enough to be President and is barely
"American" in the tradition that Americans taught in Indian schools on the
reservation. Lying to protect your family and children is no sin unless
you hurt or oppress everyone else. However that is the righteousness of
the Nazi and the Stalinists doctrines preached by monsters. Everyone
believed they didn't mean it because they didn't know the difference between
their truth and their lies. Frankly, I believe government borders on
tyranny with its power anyway. But it is the imagination and the
responsibility of all of the peoples and individuals of the nation to
preserve our liberty. But if you want to destroy something special, make
it ordinary and use it enough that people forget its real meaning.
I always thought those Civics and Government courses taught in reservation
high schools were banal and bland. That outside the reservation or as we
would say, in Miami (the town next to my reservation), they taught something
more profound to everyone else. However, since Miami and the rest have
accepted this shallow trinkets and trash mentality I guess I was wrong.
What we were taught on reservation, is far too difficult for them to
understand.
I used to have respect for Baptists since they fought a state church idea at
the Constitutional Convention, were against school proselytizing and school
prayer when I was in high school and even were against government tax
deductions for religion considering it to be the road to a state religion
like England. But today they have hands out just like everyone else and
are speaking the language of a state church with the Founding Fathers as the
Saints. Free to be dumb. Disgusting.
REH
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 8:51 AM
To: Futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] [SPAM] Prominent GOP Women Abandon Romney and Tea
Party-GOP
Worth reading...especially the second article on the Mitt and his
Mormonism...
M
-----Original Message-----
From: Portside Moderator [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 6:52 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [SPAM] Prominent GOP Women Abandon Romney and Tea Party-GOP
Prominent GOP Women Abandon Romney and Tea Party-GOP
1. Susan Eisenhower - grand-daughter of Pres. Eisenhower 2. Sue Emmett -
great-great-granddaughter of Brigham Young
===
Why I Am Endorsing President Barack Obama
by Susan Eisenhower
October 29, 2012
The Official Website of Susan Eisenhower
http://susaneisenhower.com/2012/10/29/why-i-am-endorsing-president-barack-ob
ama/
Four years ago, I left the Republican Party of which I was a lifelong member
and became an independent. Not long after, I supported Barack Obama in the
2008 election for president. I made this decision determined to look at the
issues not as a Republican or a Democrat, but as an American.
It is through that lens that I consider my choice in the 2012 election. Like
many other voters who crossed party lines to vote for Barack Obama in the
last election, I have watched the
2012 campaign carefully and listened closely to what the candidates have
said. I believe that President Obama should be re-elected.
Very few American presidents have been truly prepared to assume that job.
Four years ago, Obama, a relatively inexperienced public servant, became the
44th President of the United States during one of the most difficult times
our country has faced. The nation's economy was on the brink of collapse.
Our image overseas was tarnished, and our military was bogged down in two
unpopular wars. I supported Obama then because I thought that he was
unflappable. I saw him as a man with a keen intellect and a cool analytical
head. I believed he would also be able to inspire those who had suffered
most from a recession unparalleled since the Great Depression. In doing so,
I reasoned, he would go a long way towards reuniting a nation deeply
divided.
Obama was elected and took office, building on a number of stabilization
programs initiated by the Bush administration.
He took many other vital steps that reestablished our economic footing,
including saving America's automobile industry.
In the last four years, and despite the global downturn, America has come
back from the brink. While pain is still being felt in far too many sectors
of the economy, from a macroeconomic standpoint the situation in the United
States is better than it is among our allies. According to the International
Monetary Fund, today the United States is poised for 3 percent growth, which
would make our economy the strongest of the other richest economies,
including Canada and Germany. Other influential studies, cited in a recent
column by Fareed Zakaria, show that debt in the U.S. financial sector,
relative to GDP, has declined to levels not seen since before the 2000
bubble. And consumer confidence is now at its highest levels since September
2007. The housing market is also slowly coming back. While there is still an
enormous amount to do to assure a recovery, the president deserves credit
for a steady hand during this dangerous and unpredictable time.
In the last four years, President Obama has also had to contend with a
rapidly changing international environment. He ended the war in Iraq, was
the first Democratic president to ratify an arms control treaty with the
Russian Federation, and rallied global leaders to put nuclear security at
the top of the international agenda. The Obama Administration has also been
responsible for decimating the top leadership of al-Qaeda and introducing
biting sanctions on Iran. Today the president has significant experience in
managing foreign relations, experience that GOP candidate Mitt Romney and
his running mate, Paul Ryan, do not have.
As a result of this campaign I am more confused than ever about what Mitt
Romney stands for. I know little of his core beliefs, if he even has any. No
one seems to agree on what they are, and that's why I do not want to take a
chance on finding out.
Given Romney's shifting positions, he can only be judged by the people with
whom he surrounds himself. Many of them espouse yesterday's thinking on
national defense and security, female/family reproductive rights, and the
interplay of government and independent private enterprise. In this context,
Barack Obama represents the future, not that past.
His emphasis on education is an example of the importance he places on
preparing rising generations to assume their places as innovators and
entrepreneurs, workers and doers, and responsible citizens and leaders. He
recognizes, as many of us do, that access to opportunities must be open to
every American, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. This
is not an entitlement, but a sound investment in the future.
Barack Obama's record as president has not been perfect, and there have been
frustrations for all of us during this time.
Nevertheless, I believe that he deserves four more years in the White House.
If the voters on November 6 give him that chance, we should expect and
demand, if necessary, that members of both parties work closely with him to
find a way to avert the "fiscal cliff" and other pressing and possibly
destabilizing problems.
As I said in 2008 and will say again: "Unless we squarely face our
challenges as Americans - together - we risk losing the priceless heritage
bestowed on us by the sweat and the sacrifice of our forbearers. If we do
not pull together, we could lose the America that has been an inspiration to
the world."
==========
Brigham Young's Great-Great-Granddaughter on Mormonism and Mitt Romney
by Jamie Reno
August 7, 2012
The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/07/exclusive-brigham-young-s-g
reat-great-granddaughter-on-mormonism-and-mitt-romney.html
[A direct descendant of Brigham Young, Sue Emmett left the church because of
the very values she says would make Romney a frightening president. She
speaks exclusively with Jamie Reno.]
Sue Emmett is Mormon royalty. Her great-great-grandfather was Brigham Young,
the founder of Salt Lake City, first governor of Utah, and president and
prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) from 1847
until his death in 1877.
Emmett, whose grandmother was born in Young's historic Beehive House,
attended Brigham Young University, where she walked past the imposing
7-and-a-half-foot bronze-casted statue of her great-great-grandfather every
day on her way to class.
"Walking by that statue every day, I was reminded of my heritage, my
lineage," says Emmett. "That, plus going up to Salt Lake and walking through
the Beehive House a couple of times and thinking of my grandmother, who I
knew very well, all that pretty much sealed the deal for me being a very
devout, obedient Mormon girl."
But by the time she reached her mid-30s, she began to have doubts. Emmett
started questioning the ethics and veracity of the church's doctrine and its
founders, including Young himself, and she grew increasingly concerned with
the way, she says, the church treats women. She held these questions close
to the vest for many years until, in 1999, at the age of 55, she finally
made the hard decision to leave the church.
"There was a powerful mystique around me that I was special because of my
heritage, so it was really difficult for me to leave," says Emmett, now 71.
"It was the only life, the only home I ever knew. But I just couldn't stay
any longer."
Emmett, who still has dear friends and family members in the church - "You
can be critical of the church and still be compassionate toward the people
in it," she says - is now president of the Exmormon Foundation, which was
organized to give support and understanding to those who leave Mormonism.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Emmett, who rarely speaks to
the media, talks about what life is like in the church, why she left, and
what she thinks motivates Mitt Romney to want to be president.
"The church has astutely created a very benign image to the world. They
spend millions of dollars a year doing this," says Emmett, who was born and
raised in Portland, Ore., and still lives there. "But there are things that
go on inside the church that are hurtful to women. There are many women
still in the church who have complaints about not having any real say in
what goes on, but they have nowhere to go with these complaints."
Emmett says there is a lot of silent suffering among Mormon women, but she
just reached a point where she couldn't stay silent anymore.
Divorced from her husband of 34 years, who is still a Mormon, Emmett - the
mother of seven grown children, five of whom are still in the church while
two have left - says that "the one thing that finally put the arrow in me"
was when she and her sister-in-law decided to start a retreat for Mormon
women.
Church leaders were not amused, she says.
"It was just a social and cultural thing," Emmett explains.
"We made a vow that we would never have anything at the retreat that was
anti-church, it would just be a place for cultural events and sharing ideas.
We had artists and guest speakers, including one woman who spent her life
traveling around the world taking pictures of women and their cultures."
Emmett says the retreat, which was held in an Oregon mountain lodge and
typically attracted between 60 and 70 Mormon women, had feminist overtones,
"but we never talked about problems at church. We did nothing wrong."
Still, the negative reaction among her church's leadership was the last
straw.
"We knew we'd get in trouble for doing it, but we did it anyway," she says.
"From that point on, I was marginalized.
I'd done everything a good Mormon woman could do in the church, including
teaching children in Sunday school, but after we did the retreat I was
treated differently."
Responding to Emmett's comments about the church's treatment of women, Ruth
Todd, a spokeswoman for the church, tells The Daily Beast: "Nearly half of
the 14 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
are women. To assert that my membership or participation in the church is
based on compulsion or deception is both offensive and disparaging to me as
a woman, and is patently false."
Says Todd: "The right of every individual [Mormon] to make choices for
themselves that determine their path in life and in the eternities is a
fundamental doctrine of our faith. As a woman, I view my role in the church
and in God's plan as distinct and complementary to the efforts of men.
Trying to characterize the role of women in the church in a purely
hierarchical way misses the mark and is a flawed premise that demeans the
role and value of women."
Since she left 13 years ago, Emmett has become a leader of the ex-Mormon
movement, which she says is not about bashing her former church but about
helping former members make the difficult adjustment. "It's such an insular
world, and for some people it is really hard to make it on the `outside,' so
to speak," she says.
Emmett has watched Mitt Romney very closely throughout his public life and
has strong opinions about what shaped his personality and his character.
"Mitt is a product not only of his wealth, but of an organization that gives
men power when they are 12 years old," she says. "That is when boys are
ordained with the priesthood. It is a big moment in a Mormon male's
childhood."
As for what pundits say is Romney's difficulty connecting with people,
Emmett blames it largely on what she calls "the entitled Mormon male
syndrome, where the leadership professes compassion and concern but leaves
the manifestations of that to the drones. All male leadership is not this
way; there are some wonderful men who do their best to exercise their power
compassionately, but many do not."
Emmett says Romney was a bishop, "a position where everyone defers to you.
What a bishop says goes. People come to them to receive blessings." He then
became a stake president, she says, which means he presided over several
congregations, and at that point bishops deferred to him.
"Mitt has had people defer to him and not challenge him his entire life,"
says Emmett. "In the Mormon church if you challenge your priesthood leaders
it's a very bad thing to do, especially for women. As the world can now see,
Mitt has a very hard time with being questioned and criticized; he's had so
little of this in his life."
Will he be more beholden to his church than to the American people? Emmett
recalls that when Romney was stake president in the church, he was pro-life.
But when he was running for governor he changed his position to pro-choice.
A woman in the church who was a good friend of Emmett's went to see Romney
and thanked him for changing his position. "He told her that he had talked
to church leaders in Salt Lake," Emmett says, "and that they gave him
permission to change his position."
The Romney campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Emmett says she doesn't think Romney has the ability to separate what
leaders of the church want from what the country needs.
"Mitt has been groomed to become president from a very young age," says
Emmett. "The thing is, I think his father [George Romney, who ran for
president in 1968] would have made a much better president. In many ways the
church was more benign then than it is now."
Regarding Romney and the presidency, Emmett cites a bit of Mormon lore
called the White Horse Prophecy that has floated around since the time of
Mormon founder Joseph Smith. It suggests that Mormons believe a time will
come when the U.S.
Constitution is eroding and Mormon leaders will save it and usher in a new
theocracy with Mormons in charge. Emmett's great-great-grandfather talked
about it. In a discourse from 1855, Young wrote that "when the Constitution
hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the
'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth
and do it."
Romney has said that he considers the White Horse Prophecy just a matter of
speculation by church members. "I haven't heard my name associated with it
or anything of that nature,"
he told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2007. "That's not official church
doctrine...I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief."
But Emmett begs to differ. "I can guarantee you that there are millions of
Mormons who believe this prophecy and see Romney as potential fulfillment of
it," she says. "As a Mormon, you grow up hearing about this prophecy. I
think Mitt believes he has a mandate from God to become president so he can
help move this along. I don't know if it's a conscious thought, but it's in
his subconscious."
Emmett says she thinks Romney's biggest fault is that he has a "serious
problem telling the truth. There is flip-flopping, which he has done more
than any politician in modern history, and then there is out and out lying,"
she says. "This kind of thing has sadly been a part of the church from the
very beginning. Some modern apostles actually taught that it is not always
the best thing to tell the truth if it interferes with preaching gospel."
Emmett says the notion of "Lying for the Lord," as it has been called,
implies that teaching the whole truth about the church should be avoided. At
a presentation on Lying for the Lord at the 2008 Exmormon Foundation
conference, Ken Clark addressed the issue. Clark, who worked as a teacher
for the LDS Church Education System (CES) for 27 years and also served as a
bishop before leaving the church in 2003, tells The Daily Beast, "Lying has
become an institutionalized method of administrative control with the
church."
"Every Mormon grows up with the idea that it's OK to lie if it's for a
higher cause," says Clark, who now works for a company that markets
employment and labor market data. "But what happens is when this becomes a
part of your ethical tool kit, you develop a condescending attitude toward
people. Like Ann Romney saying 'you people.' This idea of lying for the Lord
gives you license to place people on an inferior level.
It's OK for Mitt Romney to ignore the principle of full disclosure because
it's in his DNA. Look what he's doing with his taxes, and how he talks only
in generic and sanitized terms about his religion."
But church spokeswoman Ruth Todd says there is no merit to Clark's
accusations.
"To assert that there is a culture of dishonesty or deception in the church
is both woefully uninformed and ridiculous,"
Todd says. "The pursuit of truth is at the heart of who we are. Mormon women
around the world participate actively in our church because we find value
and truth in the doctrines, structure and deep meaning provided by the
gospel of Jesus Christ that is at the core of our faith. All church members
are encouraged to study for themselves and develop their own convictions
about the church and its teachings."
When Clark left the church, he says, Emmett was of "great help to me. She is
one of best people I know. She is very courageous and compassionate."
And Emmett, despite her issues with Romney and the church, does not want to
be cast as a Mormon hater. She says that while she strongly disagrees with
many of the tenets and practices of Mormonism, most Mormons are kind, honest
people.
"Many of my children and other family members are still devout Mormons, and
I want to be sensitive to their beliefs and I have no desire to hurt them,"
says Emmett. "It's been hard for me. It was my entire life for 50 years. I
was very sincere and devout for a very long time. But as a feminist and
someone who believes that you should be allowed to say what you really feel,
I had to leave."
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all
day long.
[Jamie Reno, an award-winning correspondent for Newsweek for
17 years, has also written for The New York Times, Sports Illustrated,
Rolling Stone, People, Men's Journal, ESPN, Los Angeles Times, TV Guide,
MSNBC, Newsmax, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Reno, who's won more
than 85 writing awards, was the lead reporter on a Newsweek series on the
9/11 terrorist attacks that earned him and his colleagues the National
Magazine Award for General Excellence, the highest award in magazine
journalism. Reno, who's also an acclaimed author, singer-songwriter, and
15-year cancer survivor, lives in San Diego with his wife, Gabriela, and
their daughter, Mandy.]
==========
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