by Bill Quigley
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace
Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of the death penalty for federal or state crimes.
Neither candidate is interested in eliminating or reducing the 5,113 U.S. nuclear warheads.
Neither candidate is campaigning to close Guantanamo prison.
Neither candidate has called for arresting and prosecuting high ranking people on Wall Street for the subprime mortgage catastrophe.
Neither candidate is interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for the torture committed by U.S. personnel against prisoners in Guantanamo or in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of drones to assassinate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia.
Neither candidate is against warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, or racial profiling in fighting “terrorism.”
Neither candidate is interested in fighting for a living wage. In fact neither are really committed beyond lip service to raising the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – which, if it kept pace with inflation since the 1960s should be about $10 an hour.
Neither candidate was interested in arresting Osama bin Laden and having him tried in court.
Neither candidate will declare they refuse to bomb Iran.
Neither candidate is refusing to take huge campaign contributions from people and organizations.
Neither candidate proposes any significant specific steps to reverse global warming.
Neither candidate is talking about the over 2 million people in jails and prisons in the U.S.
Neither candidate proposes to create public jobs so everyone who wants to work can.
Neither candidate opposes the nuclear power industry. In fact both support expansion.
Bill Quigley is a Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace who is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola New Orleans. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.
One candidate is FOR killing babies and one candidate is AGAINST killing babies. Which one should we chose?
Bill, you are absolutely correct. Who should I vote for in this election then? Will you run? I would vote for someone who promised to address all of the above.
Another way to put it is that one candidate stands by a Supreme Court decision which he cannot undo, and the other one is all for “unborn children” but apparently doesn’t give an airborne rodent’s posterior about “the born”…those who are hanging on by their fingernails, the marginalized, the elderly, the one in four children going hungry every day, our armed forces, the handicapped…you know, that pesky 47%…who are beneath contempt to that candidate, because they “REFUSE to take responsibility for their lives”, greedy moochers with their hands out, all, and he got where he is by working his fingers to the bone,because “no one gave him ANYTHING.” When will people get it? The “seamless garment of life issues” must be what we respect and promote…yes, abortion is ugly and something which a woman should never have to choose, but many of the things happening to “the born” are pretty darned ugly too, and I’d like to see those things addressed as well. One issue politics is reprehensible unless you’re simple minded.
If this represents legal thinking on a Catholic campus, I am more committed
than ever to advise my grandchildren to avoid Jesuit institutions of higher learning. I spent 9 years in the seminary, and 4 years in the Air Force with a top secret intelligence clearance. These suggestions are “bunk”. “Jack” Dempsey
Bill, thank you. We have such an immense problem of imagination in our political system. The role of the churches needs to be to challenge all in public life to imagine possible policy outcomes where the dignity of all life – citizen or not, at home or abroad, in prisoned or free, in womb or at 16 or at 106, human or not – is sustained to the best of our abilities.
Jesus said ; people will say “Peace Peace”and there will be no peace…………
Shall you just disregard the persecution,rioting,rape and murder Muslim leaders are inciting with excuses,as if any offence of words can justify the violence. Remember the English Chancellor who announced a peace agreement with Adolph Hitler before devastated England .History is full of people who ended up with the heel of a “peace agreement” crushing their necks.