From: Stebbins, Donald M. (MC1961)
Date: September 7, 2008 5:51:18 PM EDT
To: “John Reinke (1968)”
Subject: Giuliani And Breen
Dear Jasper John,
I was very disappointed to see that fellow Jasper Rudy Giuliani join with Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin in making insulting attacks on the social action arm of the US Catholic bishops, the Campaign for Human Development.
I was also sorry to see cartoonist and Manhattan graduate Jerry Breen lend his support to Palin.
Many Catholics across the country were outraged by Giuliani’s and Palin’s remarks. (see below)
It is very discouraging to see fellow Manhattan graduates so opposed to people trying to
implement Catholic social teachings.
Sincerely,
Donald M Stebbins
BS 1961
[JR: (1) I'm disappointed that Rudy as a Jasper is on the wrong side of the abortion issue and IMHO on the wrong side of the liberty issue. All these politicians some how have the quaint notion that they can tell us what to do and rob us to fund it (i.e., taxes are merely theft). (2) I'm disappointed that the Chuch has bought into the meme of gooferment. Hook, line, and sinker. I firmly beleive that they lost their way back in the days of the French monarchy. So, "Human Development", like "Social Justice", has become a code word for more socialistic Government welfare. Slavery was more charitable. At least the Plantation Master had a vested interest in HEALTHY slaves. (3) I am disapointed that Jerry hasn't enraged more Jaspers. :-) I think he's really sort of apolitical. Skewing the targets as they appear. You have to think his Hillary toon is a hoot and absolutely true. I remember how the MC hierarchy didn't like Jasperman critizing tuition hikes, ROTC, and prices in the cafeteria. So, I'm sure if you keep reading, he'll annoy you even more with his next creation. I can't wait. I've even tried my hand at politcial satire. http://reinkefaceslife.com/2008/09/07/political-my-impression-of-ms-palins-speech/ http://tinyurl.com/5t784c ... ROFL at my own humor. Thanks for a great thought-provoking email. It's going to be a fun 60 days. Sadly, I don't think anything will change. Except we'll pay more taxes for more gooferment! Sigh.]
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Catholics Outraged by Palin Insults
http://catholicsforobama.blogspot.com/2008/09/catholics-outraged-by-palin-insults.html
Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action
Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama’s service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago.
First, the Dallas Morning News gives us the facts on the background:
Starting at age 23, Obama ran a faith-based charity called the Developing Communities Project.
It was made up of eight Catholic parishes when he got there and had one staff member. He was its director, meaning he was in charge. He made decisions about it, including staffing, budgets, etc. And when he left in 1988 to go to law school, he had grown its budget from $70,000 to $400,000, its staff from 1 to 13 people. More important, he created a job training program for this community and a college prep tutoring program. As mayor [of Wasilla, Palin] built a hockey rink/rec center using eminent domain (because apparently there just isn’t enough land in Alaska).
Now for the attacks on this Catholic sponsored social action initiative. At the Republican Party National Convention, Palin and ex-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani mocked the work Barack Obama did for this group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. As for Barack Obama’s service as a community organizer, Giuliani even sneered “I don’t even know what that is.” Palin, who was baptized but not raised Catholic and sought “re-baptism” in a Protestant Church can be forgiven for knowing little of the Catholic Church’s admirable witness for the poor and socially marginalized. But even a lapsed Catholic like Giuliani should know of the Catholic Church’s concern for the poor and oppressed.
Joe Klein’s take on this: This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man’s decision “to serve a cause greater than himself,” in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate’s favorite messages. Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school. To describe this service–the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other–as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.
America magazine, the national Jesuit weekly, shared in the shock at this repeated attack on Catholic Action.
A Midwestern Catholic leader wrote: In an stunning insult to 76.9 million Americans, another politician continues the republican bias towards Catholics. Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech scoffed at work that her opponent had done in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. She belittled Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s experience as a community organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago, work he undertook instead of pursuing a lucrative career on Wall Street. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has operated the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, its domestic anti-poverty and social justice program, since 1969. In 1986, the Bishops issued Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy, which said, “Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community.” Senator Obama worked in several Catholic parishes, supported by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, helping to address severe joblessness and housing needs in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago.
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[CIC Technical Note: Jasper Stebbins message had to be rescued from the 1AND1 Spam Filters, and again from the MacBookAir's. So there is something about the message that looks to the filters as spam. I mention this not as a reflection ont he message, but as a 'heads up' to all email users. All the service providers, Comcast included, have aggressive anti-spam efforts. I know Comcast has a slew of people and partners workign on it. Here's a rule of thumb, if you don't see your email in the daily feed or in the weekly issue, you can 100% assume that it has "fallen off the table" somewhere. You probably want to treat email as the lossy medium it can be. I pubish EVERYTHING, unless asked not to. (It happens from time to time.) So if you don't see yours, please let me know.]
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