Actually, my family visited with the Dalai Lama when he was here in the Twin Cities not so long ago. We happen to have friends in an active Tibetan refugee community here.

I have worked with ecumenical Christian groups on issues of war and peace, social justice, and human rights for 25 years. I have worked in partnership with members of the my local Native American, African American, Somali, Hmong, and Latino communities through community organizations, the schools, and churches, synagogues, temples, and community centers.

What I am sick to death of in Mudcat is the holier than thou Christians and New Agers coming in here and labelling those of us using irony and black humor to make points in discussions about stopping the war, LECTURING us anti-war folk who do not share their spiritual/religious views, and demonizing us for doing the GOOD RIGHT WORK that needs to be done, because we aren't thinking and speaking the way they think we "should" speak.

Now, for those of you who think that I am exaggerating what these spiritual/religious fundamentalists are doing to demonize the anti-war posters, have a look at the language being used to describe us and what we are doing--and I am directly quoting words and phrases used to in the War Betting thread here:

..."vile" and "sick" and "outside the boundaries of good taste" and "distasteful" and "one sick bastard" and "like having a best friend dying of cancer with no hope of surviving and his/her friends begin a pool to see when he/she will take the last breath" and "creating your dangerous vile pool of fear and negativism"

Substitute for a moment, the phrase "anti-war activist" for Jew or Christian, and look at that list above. People would be screaming for the blood of the posters who would use such language to describe a group of religious people working to prevent the war.

You have your philosophies, beliefs, and spiritual/religious beliefs about "the right way" to do anti-war work, and I can respect that. What I will not respect, nor tolerate, is people demonizing others here to make themselves look good among their new age and Christian Mudcat peers, by using such language of demonization to depict those of us who don't share their beliefs. And I will use strong language, including swear words, to denounce it. We are all adults here, despite some peoples' attempts to dumb down and infantilize the conversation.