Bob Lord

In a post a few weeks back, In which I (sigh) have to give Bob Lord a Pro-Choice 101 lecture, Donna Gratehouse “schooled” me on my unwillingness, expressed here, to reject Pope Francis entirely because he has not changed official Catholic Church positions on abortion and contraception. She even ended the post saying “Class dismissed.” How cute. And condescending.

The thrust of the piece was that I just didn’t understand the paramount significance of issues related to reproductive choice, all because I thought the Pope’s positions on those issues, which I do find abhorrent, did not preclude us from giving him his due for the exemplary work he’s done regarding climate change and inequality.

I had intended not to respond. I thought Donna’s anger spoke for itself, and several commenters told her as much.

But then I stumbled on this, from a Chris Hedges post eulogizing Father Daniel Berrigan, who recently passed:

Dan’s worldly possessions, including his small collection of threadbare clothes, could barely fill two suitcases. He was as opposed to abortion as he was to the death penalty, a stance that did not always endear him to many left-wing activists.

Should we paint Berrigan with the same brush that Donna uses to paint the Pope?

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We’re hearing a lot about the 2000 election these days. The Democratic Party faithful have reminded us several thousand times how foolhardy it was to vote for Nader.

It’s an interesting spin. One could have attributed Gore’s loss to the Supreme Court decision. Or to the purging of Democrats from voter rolls. Or to the mass confusion in Palm Beach County over the butterfly ballot, which caused about 5,000 Jewish Democrats to vote for Pat Buchanan. Or to, well, Gore.

But after the dust settled, the Democratic Party establishment chose a different epitaph. It was that no good Nader and the idiots who voted for him.

Okay, let’s give the Party leaders the benefit of the doubt and assume they really believed it was all about Nader. And let’s assume they wanted to make sure history didn’t repeat itself. That logically left them at least two options.

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I once listened to a group of country club Republicans discuss whether America should “turn the Middle East into a parking lot.” It was not one of those anger filled discussions in the wake of 9/11. Rather, it was a serious discussion about the course of action that would suit America needs best. Some favored that course of action. Others were more cautious, opining that there were more effective ways to make “those people” behave better. None, however, was terribly concerned by the thought of slaughtering tens of millions.

From the inception of his campaign, Donald Trump has promised he will implement policies that will make Mexico and China both behave.

Hillary Clinton now regrets her support for the Iraq War. She understands that it was ill-conceived. She understands the tremendous financial cost to America. She regrets the loss of American troops. She understands the destabilizing impact of the war and how it likely gave rise to ISIS. Is she bothered by the untold misery inflicted on the Iraqi people? I’m not sure, but based on her public remarks, that doesn’t seem to have much to do with her regret for supporting the war.

Notice the common thread?

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What if a Clinton victory in November increased the risk someone worse than Trump gets elected in 2020? Would you still feel so comfy about the urgency of the next few Supreme Court picks?

Nearly three years ago, I wrote Wake Up Progressives, a post inspired as many of my posts are by Chris Hedges, who I consider to be the canary in the coal mine. Quoting Hedges:

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