My reply to my brothers hate mail
I get home from working a Candidate Forum last night and checked my email. Besides the seemingly hundreds of messages from candidates surrogates asking for money, I saw a few from family and friends. The first one I open in from my brother, it was obviously some chain bullshit he just passed on and since he got it from someone he believed it.
I could tell quickly that it was a hate piece, it started out about this being a christian nation and then went on with pictures and descriptions of people praying on their mats (sorry, not sure what they are called) in the streets of New York. It said they were Muslims and called this activity horrifying and how you couldn't say prayers at this event or that one but these people could do this. It was a very long piece which once I hit the reply, I deleted.
My reply was:
"It's called freedom of religion, not just my religion. You can pray in the street too if you really want to, there is nothing stopping you, but you might want to start by going to church first."
He has not been inside a church for 20+ years except for my mothers funeral. Oh and I replied to all, that really pisses him off.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Do Mitt, Rick Santorum, and Peter King think Thomas Nast was right?
* Creator(s): Nast, Thomas, 1840-1902, artist
* Date Created/Published: [between 1860 and 1902]
* Medium: 1 drawing : pen and ink.
* Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-50658 (b&w film copy neg.)
* Rights Advisory: Publication may be restricted. For information see "Cabinet of American Illustration,"
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/111_cai.htmlAZ)
* Access Advisory: Restricted access: Materials in this collection are often extremely fragile; most originals cannot be served.
* Call Number: CAI - Nast, no. 54 (C size) [P&P]
* Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
* Notes:
o No publication information.
o (DLC/PP-1980:0080.7).
o Forms part of: Cabinet of American illustration (Library of Congress).
o Exhibit loan 4207-L.
* Subjects:
o Catholics.
o Mormans.
o Domes.
o Freedom of religion.
o Religious groups.
o Reptiles.
* Format:
o Cartoons (Commentary)
o Drawings.
* Collections:
o Cabinet of American Illustration
* Part of: Cabinet of American illustration (Library of Congress)
* Bookmark This Record:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010717281/
May 8, 1875
Thomas Nast
“The American River Ganges”
Children; Education, Public Schools; New York City, Education; Religion, Roman Catholic Church; Symbols, Columbia; Women, Symbolic;
This cartoon is one of Thomas Nast's most famous. It depicts Roman Catholic clergy as crocodiles invading America's shore to devour the nation's schoolchildren--white, black, American Indian, and Chinese. (The white children are prominent in front, the rest are in the background.) The public school building stands as a fortress against the threat of theocracy, but it has been bombarded and flies Old Glory upside down to signal distress.
Education in nineteenth-century America was provided by a variety of private, charitable, public, and combined public-private institutions, with the public school movement gaining strength over the decades. A major political issue during the 1870s was whether state and municipal governments should allocate funds for religiously affiliated schools, many of which were Roman Catholic. In most public schools, the Protestant version of the Bible was read, Protestant prayers were uttered, and Protestant teachers taught Protestant moral lessons. (Notice the boy in the cartoon who protects the younger students from the Catholic onslaught carries a Bible in his coat.) Catholic (and some Protestant) leaders asked that parochial schools receive their fair share of public funds. Protestant defenders of public schools erroneously considered that request to be an attempt by Catholics to destroy the spreading public school system.
***
The publishers and staff of Harper’s Weekly, including cartoonist Thomas Nast, were mainly Protestant or secular liberals. Like most such Americans, they believed that the Roman Catholic Church was an antiquated, authoritarian institution that stood against the “Modernism” of a progressive society and democratic political institutions. Irish-Catholics in particular were suspected of being loyal primarily to the Vatican, rather than to the United States, and of not being capable of assimilation by nature or stubborn will. Furthermore, Irish-Catholics were overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic Party, and more politically involved than other ethnic groups. The Republican newspaper was vehemently opposed to what it believed was the growing political and social influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
http://www.harpweek.com/09cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=May&Date=8
