Today, religious fanatics and bigots like Rick Santorum or psychopathic opportunists seeking their backing, like Mitt Romney, are destroying this foundation for American liberty and democracy. Along with their incessant lying, which destroys political debate and the discussion of ideas on which democracy depends, they are also destroying the country by casting their arguments in very narrow terms, and then making those issues so central that compromise is impossible. Political discussion that can enlarge citizens’ understanding is replaced by self-righteous shrieking as we see in the falsely named “pro-life” movement that spreads death and suffering for real people while unctuously puffing about their devotion to zygotes. That their motives have nothing to do with life and everything to do with control and domination have been revealed for all but the most blind to see by their recent assaults against contraception and violence against women legislation, even to the point of permitting doctors to lie and occasionally prohibiting them from telling their patients the truth.

The requirement for a secular context within which citizens could make their case to other citizens is rejected as “anti-religious” when in fact it is pro-religious. In its place, they would install rule by privileged groups the worst members of which would rise to the top as genuine spiritual scum, something that we have observed happening whenever religion and politics become indistinguishable. Oppressing other views comes naturally to such people. Some of Santorum’s supporters have said as much, although others are more circumspect.

Either they rule us, or they seek to destroy the country. There is no third option. Under such circumstances the stakes of winning or losing rise to become unacceptably high. No one who values women’s freedom, be they man or woman, can afford to let these people rule us. No one who has any faith other than the most irrational and mindless reading of the Bible can afford to let them rule us either. Nor can anyone who has no faith. History is very clear where these people go when they have the power, and the graves of millions testify to their methods.

For the moment, right-wing Catholics are united with right-wing Southern Baptists, right-wing Pentecostals, and right-wing Mormons in a wholesale assault on America’s best traditions. Their political leaders, such as Santorum, have made it clear that forms of Christianity not like his are not really Christian. Given that they claim America is a “Christian” nation, it takes little imagination to realize what they would do to liberal Christians once they have consolidated power. Totalitarians of the right and left have always been clear as to what they would do, and their future victims have refused to believe them, until it was too late. Now we are facing a similar challenge.

The logic of their positions would turn them against one another after having gotten rid of the wrong sorts of liberal Christians, Pagans, and likely Jews. This is what Christianist totalitarians have always done since the Roman Empire. Today in America, it is as if the worst people from times that repeatedly drenched Europe in war and massacre have crawled like mindless zombies out from the mass graves of mutual religious slaughter to do it again. And most of these zombies are Republicans.

If they do not attain power, their alliance with a powerful element of the corporate oligarchy now dominating this country prevents any pushback against the power of wealth. The Southern Baptists in particular served to support Southern oligarchs against poor whites and blacks alike by splitting them and weakening their ability to see what they share in common. Now they are doing the same on a national scale. Their threat comes not only from what they want to do to the rest of us, but also from their efforts to divide the country to facilitate the rule of wealth.

Our road to safety and a more secure liberty requires calling out these demonic servants of a Sauron rather than a deity, and doing so at every opportunity. Very importantly, this includes as Americans taking back our history from their lies. Hopefully this column gives my readers plenty of truthful ammunition for doing so.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/paul-lepage-child-labor-laws_n_851113.html

Tell them to forget sex, until your elected husbands stop screwing the rights of American women.

I pray every day and I know they are heard, but church and religion are not part of my spirituality.

Still, in recent months I have seen so-called Christians lie, call others who are different names, and try to cloak themselves and other in a state of fear. Lately, Christians and their leaders haven’t been acting like they have good sense. But, this article in the Huffington Post caught my attention and reminded me of how Christians are supposed to be, a lot like socialists.

(RNS) John Dominic Crossan is arguably the world’s foremost scholar of the historical Jesus. Twenty-five years ago, Crossan co-founded the Jesus Seminar with Robert Funk, a group of mostly liberal scholars who decide on the historicity of the deeds and sayings of Jesus.

A former Roman Catholic priest and professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University, Crossan newest book — his 26th — looks at the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father. In The Greatest Prayer, Crossan argues that Christianity’s best-known invocation is misunderstood and undervalued in today’s society.

Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You call the Lord’s Prayer Christianity’s “greatest prayer,” but also say it can be prayed by followers of all religions. Why would non-Christians recite it?

A: Any religion’s greatest prayers should be addressed to the whole world. If a prayer only speaks to you, that’s fine. But I would like to hear you speaking to all of us. The Lord’s Prayer is the greatest because it comes from the heart of Judaism and the lips of Christianity — but speaks to the conscience of the world.

Q: You also call it Christianity’s “strangest” prayer.

A: Ask a Christian what’s the most important things about Christianity, and see if you find those in the Lord’s Prayer. When Christians emphasize what’s most important for them, it’s usually not in the Lord’s Prayer, and they almost never mention that “give us this day our daily bread” means exactly that — that everyone has a right to the material basis of life. It’s “strange” in that there’s a huge discrepancy between what most people think Christianity is really about and what Jesus thinks Christianity is really about.

Q: The Lord’s Prayer addresses God as “Father.” Is that a turn-off for women?

A: It is, and they’re going to have to learn, as we all have to, what is meant by people who use a different culture than our own. Sheep and shepherds don’t do much for me, but I will allow ancient people the validity of their language.

When they say “Father,” I ask what that meant in the Mediterranean world, and it means “householder.” I accept the traditional term of “Father,” but I do not accept the patriarchal presuppositions. I say “Father” (but) I read “householder.” The most important point is that you understand what this metaphor stands for.

Q: Scholars have shown the Lord’s Prayer to come straight from the Jewish tradition. How did it become Christianity’s best-known prayer?

A: It is utterly, totally, fully Jewish. There’s nothing in there that’s particularly “Christian.” Do I think Jesus drilled his followers to learn the prayer as we have it in (the Gospels of) Matthew or Luke? I don’t think so, because I can’t find it in (the writings of) Paul. What I do find in Paul and (the Gospel of) Mark is the key word: “Abba” — the metaphor for God as householder. If you unpack that, everything else simply flows from it.

Q: What new light does all this shed on the historical Jesus?

A: If you had to summarize the historical Jesus, we are now down to a single word, almost an ecstatic proclamation: God is “Abba.” And God as householder is the way the ancient Jews and earliest Christians got their idea of how things should be run. They all knew what a well-run
household looked like, and they made God the Big Householder in the Sky. What appalled them was not poverty or riches, but the discrepancy between them, the inequality.

I don’t think the Bible would worry if everyone was poor or if everyone was rich. What appalls the Bible is, how could you have a household with some (members) getting far more than others, and others getting far less than they need?

Given America’s current climate, why hasn’t anyone said the Lord’s Prayer is a socialist prayer and we shouldn’t recite it?

A: I don’t think there’s much in the Our Father that isn’t in the Pledge of Allegiance, where we pledge ourselves to liberty and justice for all. If liberty and justice for all is not communism or socialism or liberalism, then the Bible is saying really not much more.

Here is a sample of what Elon James White wrote. Enjoy.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing fear-mongers know what subject riles up the masses: Race.

When asked, “Where do you fall along the political spectrum,” I often answer, “I consider myself ‘anti-evil.’” When I see malicious attempts at hurting people I will often side with not hurting people. It’s weird, I know. I think stopping insurance companies from bankrupting families and denying healthcare is a good idea. I think maybe we shouldn’t racially profile Hispanics in order to deal with our immigration issue. Apparently this makes me a crazy socialist Nazi to some, but to me, I’m on the side of light.

I will continue fighting for what seems like obvious ways of helping: squashing stereotypes, speaking up against injustice, and, on occasion (read: all the time), mocking. If this was all playing out like some big-budget blockbuster movie my superpower would be sarcasm sprinkled with awesome snark. That’s how I cut down the forces that would rather marginalize my experiences and label me “caught up in race.” I will throw on my superhero hat, tilt it to the side, and happily tell someone to go fuck themselves for the betterment of society.

Making fun of evil is a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it, right?

How seriously can a person take the Tea Party? Their members have called me a Nazi Brownshirt because I am a liberal. Sharon Angle wants to rescind my social security and yours too. Boehner wants a forty-five, fifty, sixty-year olds to work until they are 70, while he plays golf and stays tanned. In truth Social Security is not in trouble. Especially if the US Government would repay all the loans they have taken out of Social Security finances. Another Republican wants to change the 14th amendment.

Both political parties are selling out to rich Corporations and their demanding rich shareholders. Fox News which obviously is short on researchers spreads lies across the world like a super-virus along with bloggers who have no conscience or merits. The Tea Party has become a spreading virus. It is time to fight evil and I commend Mr. White’s for his efforts. We need to stop being fearful and look at the truths.

Listen up, Tea Baggers, you are falling for a giant propaganda movement and you could turn out looking like a follower of the once powerful Senator McCaurthy. Rush, Newt, and other Repubs are the children of Lee Atwater. These people cannot play nice.

Send the Navy, send in the Marines. Send the unemployed. Isn’t contaminating the world more important that wars and hate? There is nothing to be patient about…this is a tragedy of world proportions. If the oil globs are on Florida beaches today, tomorrow…the Islands of Novia Scotia, all too soon oil globs will reach “The Halls of Montezuma.”

What happened to the old American way of life, have we forgotten all that our parents and grandparents taught us? It used to be that each generation taught their children to stand up and claim their mistakes because it made us a better person. Now it is standard to blame problems on your neighbor’s political party. This is not the American way.

Our fathers and mothers once taught us the importance of respect for ourselves and others. Back in a time, “a handshake was as good as a contract and things were built just so.”

I grew up country. A farmer’s child. My parents grew up during the depression. My mother had to quit school and help run the house when her mother became too ill to care for her eight brothers and sisters. My father was the eldest son of five children. His father became ill and he took his place running the farm, this meant he quit school at sixteen. My father worked the farm until noon, Then he would eat dinner, shower, and change into a suit. He was circulation manager of the western counties. He never came home from work before 8 p.m.

I was raised around people who grew up during the depression and frought World War II. Many of them had not had the privilege to complete high school. If a job needed doing…their generation, and our grandparents got it done. They built America.

Why are we, the children of mighty forefathers standing dumbstruck passively watching the Gulf, the sea, and the oceans being poisoned.

Are we so separated from the ways of nature that instead of becoming a land of opportunities, America has become the land of the silent peasant watching the angry peasants. This is so sad because we all live on this one earth. In this time of change, instead of pulling apart, why aren’t we pulling together? Especially, at a time when we all are losing a way of life. Has anyone noticed that harm is done to the earth in our name?

Where are the farmers who could ship loads of hay? If hay is the answer will someone place it along the wetlands and retrieve it to save the day?

If Kevin Costner has spent millions funding a device that can separate oil water…why is it not in use now. But, the whole Gulf oil mess broke down along political parties. This at a time when Anerica’s resources are dwindling.

It is time to remember that America was shaped by people working together. We are the government. We are America.

Does anyone hear the individual voices of America, not anymore. We have done this to ourselves and we need to help each other not fight over Liberal or Conservative. Didn’t our ancestors want us to pull together for each other where there was trouble.

As fathers drive their boats across America’s rivers and lakes, remember all that is nature belong to the Eternal, the God of many names. It is up to us to keep America safe and clean. It is time to label ourselves Americans, roll up our sleeves, and throw away individual labels until our world is repaired. It is the American Way.

In the fall of 2002, I convinced a friend to hire me to research the history of the Riverbend community. Well, one thing led to another, and in the spring of 2003, I drove to the Gaston County Courthouse, gave the Clerk of Court the filing fee, signed my name on a deed and became the owner of an old and ancient graves. Through a curiously circuitous journey, I was led to these forgotten relatives.

During my history project, I interviewed everyone I could find who would sit and answer questions about Riverbend, including the peninsula historian, Calvin Hart. Calvin knew someone who had an old map of the peninsula. Another person came up with letters and photos of the old Henderson place, and the location of the Henderson ferry which took them across the river to one of the area’s first church, Hopedale on Beatties Ford Rd. I read the tombstones in the Lineberger Cemetery at the end of the peninsula. I spent days shuffling through the archives in the Lincoln County Museum.

I met cousins, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, most of who were dead. I read about ancestry that claims blood kin from Pocahontas and Norman Vikings. Family legend states that John Abernethy, one of the first pioneers to ford the Catawba, arrived from Virginia, and told that one of his grandmothers was Pocahontas. I read of a relative who died in a duel, another was appointed to a government office and when he was excused from the office, he refused to leave.

In Gaston County records there is a reference to an Abernethy family operating a ferry in 1764. This same ferry would be purchased in the next century by Richard Rozzelle, my great, great, and great-grandfather.

Among the early pioneers were Jacob Forney (arrived in 1752) followed by multitudes of new back-country settlers. Among the next wave were the families of Johnson, Mauney, Alexander, Abernethy, McCorkle, Cansler, Rhyne, Hoke, Lineberger, McLean, Howard, Reid, Reinhardt, Reep, Warlick, Chronicle, Dellinger and Ramsour. The Dutch pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania to settle along the Catawba were from the Palatinate Region of Germany. The Scots-Irish were peasant from the Plantation of Ulster.

It was in a conversation with a friend that sent me in search of a forgotten graveyard. I followed my instincts and parked along a country road one bright fall day…I entered the woods looking for a “supposed” cemetery. Leaves crunched beneath our footfalls. Unseen mourning doves called from the brush, periwinkle carpeted the ground, and the trees were thicker than rush-hour traffic. My feet were deep in leaves dropped by many fall seasons, it was quiet. It was spooky. I glanced into the trees one last time before turning back. Suddenly, I saw five tombstones standing among the trees.

These moss-covered slabs marked the final resting place of the first pioneer families to carve out hoe on the Riverbend Peninsula. More than one grave was sunken and most tombstones were broken, scattered, and in various states of disintegration.

Among the tombstones are all are proof of lives that are now long forgotten. James A. Henderson (b. 1796-d. April 18, 1888) rests here as does his wife, Linia Parr Abernethy (b. 1811-d. November 20, 1888). Beneath the fourth tombstone lies their daughter, Mary Adeline Craig, wife of S. W. Craig. Mary was born in 1831 and died April 20, 1855, one month after giving birth to her daughter, Mary Laura Elizabeth Craig.

James and Linia doubtless made many sad pilgrimages to this graveyard. They buried two sons, William Adolphus Henderson (b. 1842 d. 1862), James Lawson Henderson (b. 1839 d. 1864) and their granddaughter, Mary Laura Elizabeth Craig (b. March 5, 1855 d. 1868). Mary Laura Elizabeth was only thirteen at the time of her death. James and Linia Henderson carried on with the task of living for more than 20 years before they joined their children in the cemetery.

According to a letter written by James Abernethy Henderson on September 19, 1962, James Abernethy, one of Henderson’s ancestors, arrived in the Riverbend/South Forks area in the summer of 1769. He traveled to the area with his brother-in-law, Robert Abernethy, Jr. and Robert’s wife, Sarah Abernethy. Robert’s elderly parents were traveling with them as were his two brothers, David and Miles Abernethy, James was known in the family as Cousin James.

They crossed the river at Beatties Ford and settled on the western banks of the
Catawba River. The letter further states that James married Elizabeth Cox Abernethy and they were the parents of seven children. Among the children was a set of twins, Elizabeth and Mary who was nicknamed Polly.

Elizabeth married William Henderson. They had 10 children. Their first born child was James A. Henderson who rests by his wife, Linia Abernethy, daughter of Miles and Susan Paar Abernethy. Her sister, Mary (Polly) Abernethy married Richard Rozzelle and they had six children.

Richard and Mary Rozzelle settled on what became Old Plank Road and were neighbors of Anna Morrison, wife of Civil War legend Stonewall Jackson. Though the Jacksons lived in Virginia, Mrs. Jackson settled in the Charlotte area after the war.

The landscape changes, and decades pass, but as each generation births a new generation into their life’s journey to experience laughter, contentment, and tears; mortgages, weddings, and wars; ancestors are forgotten. If we do not know our history, our forefathers, if we erase history; how will we know who we are?

“Think of all that has happened here, on this earth. All the blood, hot and strong for living, pleasuring, that has soaked back into it.” William Faulkner, “Big Woods”

And while the debate goes on, hardly anyone is discussing the central role the river has played in history, and the impact those events have had on the nation, the state and the region.

Over the next few weeks, I will be publishing a series of essays on the history of Mountain Island Lake region going back to the original settlers of the region. The essays are intended to provide context about the lake’s past as we debate its future, which at the moment appears to be perilous.

First, for those not familiar with the current crisis, here is some background information:

In the past decade, sub-divisions have sprung up along the shore-line of Mountain Island Lake like fields of mushrooms. Now, many of these newly arrived “back-country settlers” are disturbed by new regulations and fees proposed by the Mountain Island Lake Marine Commission. It involves taxes. It involves restrictions. It will stifle their pursuit of recreational happiness.

The Mountain Island Lake Marine Commissionn was formed by a Joint Resolution of Gaston, Lincoln, and Mecklenburg County. The Marine Commission is instructed to preserve and protect Mountain Island Lake. Currently, the Marine Commission is sponsoring new Motor Vessel Managed Access Regulations which would place restrictions on the length of boats allowed on the lake, and new fees for permits to operate a boat on the lake.

For further information on the condition of Mountain Island Lake visit also Lake Norman Covekeepers, which is a part of Lake Norman Riverkeepers.

If you are against their proposal, go to Boaters against Motor Vessel Managed Access Regulations and sign the petition. As of May 25, 2010, there were 433 signatures.

In recent decades, thousands of homes have been built along the Mountain Island Lake’s twenty-seven mile shore line. The coves and the river are lined with homes and piers. The lake’s surface area is a mere 2,788 water-acres. No one is in favor more taxes. Who has an extra dime these days? Still, do you know that in 2008, the Catawba River was labeled the most endangered river in America?

I believe anyone who is fortunate enough to live on a window of land that would allow you to every day have the opportunity to watch twilight unfold in the western sky and to watch the morning mists that drift above the Lake. I believe you own Paradise. I only wish that I could live upon these shores. I understand your frustration. I have always rebelled against regulations and rules. I truly believe it has to do with the mysticism of Mountain Island Lake or, as we referred to this body of water, in my youth, the Catawba River.

According to the EPA, the Duke Energy owned coal-fired Riverbend Steam plant operates two of the 44 highest hazard coal ash ponds in the United States. The steam plant is located on the Riverbend peninsula which juts into the Catawba River like a thumb.

I read on one note written by a concerned home/boat owner in which he referred to the possibility of Mountain Island Lake becoming as regulated as Lake Lure, NC. Would that be bad? I wondered. Isn’t it important in this era of dwindling natural resources that we take note and preserve what we can? The Catawba River and Lake Lure existed before time and memory.

As noted, we’ll be looking at that history over the next few weeks, but here’s a brief overview:

Along the lake, all across the three county area, you will find large and small volcanic rocks. These volcanic rocks seem to grow like potatoes when the spring fields were plowed. The shoreline of Mountain Island Lake, the woodlands, forests, and shores of the Catawba River are littered with volcanic rocks. If you are fortunate and resolute, there are several very special rocks that bear proof that they were not alone. These rocks are as old as the eons, and they were used by Paleolithic Indians to grind nuts. For centuries and decades, grandmothers and daughters wore smooth bowls into these rocks.

The earliest inhabitants of the Catawba River and the land were the Catawba Indians who called themselves the “people of the river.” The forests were home to the wild beasts, panther, cougar, bear, buffalo and moose. The Catawba River was home to poisonous snakes, and all manner of fish and fowl. Even today, at dawn and at eventide, the raptors, eagles, hawks dive as swift as arrows shot from a bow, deep into the water spearing fish for supper.

The original German and Scots-Irish settlers began to cross the Catawba River into Carolina back-country around 1745 to 1750. Around the same time, Robert Alexander built the Red-House in Woodlawn (Mt. Holly), overlooking the Catawba River. Alexander was married to Martha Jack, the sister of Captain Jack who carried the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to Philadelphia.

In the early years, the Catawba River was the dividing line at the edge of the world between civilization and the wilderness. Beyond the shores of Mountain Island Lake lay the land of the Cherokee. At that time, Mountain Island Lake/Catawba River was the fartherest edge of civilization.

The settlers who came to the wilderness of the Catawba River came because they had been driven from the coastal cultures of civilization. They came to settle on land they owned. It was the first time peasants were allowed to own property. As plow people, the Ulstermen, the Scoti, and the Palatines were farmer-peasants. Because of their natural knowledge of the earth and the moon…they understood the treasures they had been given by Good King George. The back-country settlers spoke a universal language, the understanding of the rhythms of the seasons, and the names of the full-moons. For these farmers, day began at sunset.

Settlers were far and between, but there was a brave young German settlement along the creeks of the South Fork tributary of the Catawba River. It was known as the Warlick settlement and later it became known as Ramsour’s Mill.

In 1768, a new county was created out of old Mecklenburg west of the Catawba River and south of the Earl of Granville line. This new county was named Tryon in honor of the British Governor William Tryon. A decade later, the county was renamed to honor Major-General Benjamin Lincoln, of Rhode Island, and commander of the Southern Armies during the American Revolutionary War. Unfortunately for Gen. Lincoln, he is mostly forgotten today, because he led the Continental forces during their disastrous loss of Charleston to the British in 1780. Now most people assume, incorrectly, that the county was named after President Lincoln. Much later, in 1846, Gaston County was created from Lincoln County.

On October 7, 1780, our ancestors joined with the Over-Mountain Men at the Battle of Kings Mountain and turned the tide of the war in favor of the patriots. Among the heroes counted on this day were William Chronicle of Belmont and the militia of young men known as the South Fork Boys who grew up along the banks of the Catawba. The Battle of Kings Mountain turned the tide of the American Revolution and made victory at Yorktown, possible.

The Catawba River and its South Fork tributary were as important to the original settlers as an airport is to modern cities. The Catawba-Wateree runs to the sea providing a way for the settlers to ship their iron and cotton to the world.

For more than 150 years, my ancestors ferried the Catawba. The ferry was located near where the Rozzelles Ferry Bridge is built on NC Highway 16. For a bit of silver or gold, they would come for you to bring you home or take you away.

The Abernethy ferry is noted on an old and faded map drawn in 1768. It is told that James Abernethy and his sister, Jane, journeyed from Jamestown, Virginia, with their aged parents to the shores of the Catawba River. Here, their journey ended. At the end of an old Indian trail they established an inn and a ferry.

Their second-cousin, Jim Abernethy, traveled with them and in the years to come, Jane Abernethy married Cousin Jim. The Abernethys hailed originally from Perth, Scotland. These first Abernethys were Picts. The Picts were Celtic barbarians who once lived the highlands of Scotland. The Picts fought the Romans and the Saxons who stormed the British Isles. No one knows where the Picts began or ended, for their Celtic culture has fallen into the forgotten mists of yesterday.

A cousin told me the meaning of the surname of the first Abernethys to set foot in the British Colonies. For centuries the Abernethy families were known as the Abers who ferried the Nethy River in the ancient capital of Perth, Scotland. I would not guess how many generations of Abernethys were born before Jane, Jim, and James Abernethy arrived on the banks of the Catawba River.

This I do know about the Abernethys, they were the people of the plow. They planted by moonlight. They were religious, and hard-working. And they were probably more stubborn than mules.

I have researched the history of the area. I know many stories told by the original back-country settlers and before the Catawba River is lost and history is forgotten — before anyone decides whether Mountain Island Lake and the Catawba River is theirs to protect or to simply enjoy.

Their stories, their lives need to be considered before it is decided whether or not Mountain Island Lake and the Catawba River are worth saving.