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Related: About this forumMy Take: The Mother Teresa you don’t know
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/my-take-the-mother-teresa-you-dont-know/September 10th, 2012
10:16 AM ET
My Take: The Mother Teresa you dont know
Editor's note: David Van Biema, the chief religion writer at Time Magazine for ten years, is author of the illustrated biography "Mother Teresa: The Life and Works of a Modern Saint," now being reissued and made available in Spanish as "La Madre Teresa: La Vida y las obras de un santa moderna."
By David Van Biema, Special to CNN
Fifteen years may be less than an instant in celestial time, but here on earth it's a lot of news cycles.
Mother Teresa departed this earth on September 5, 1997. What more can we say about the woman who became synonymous with love for the "poorest of the poor," picking up a Nobel and tweaking the conscience of millions? What do we know about her now that we didn't know then?
A lot, it turns out.
Here's a quick Blessed Mother Teresa primer, emphasizing the stuff that you probably dont know, some of which we only learned recently.
much more at link (and quite a few surprises)
okasha
(11,573 posts)that the guy who defended waterboarding (even after experiencing it!) got her all wrong.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Hitchens points out much more horrifying things about the woman who will be a saint.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Try replying to more than the headline.
And frankly, I find Hitchens--that guy who defended waterboarding and torture even after he'd experienced it and continued to support the Bush wars in western Asia--much more horrifying than anything he has to say about a woman who didn't share his ideologies. Falsum in unum, and like that.
onager
(9,356 posts)A pious fraud who warehoused the dying poor, only making sure they died Catholic.
A hypocrite who spent the bare minimum on the sick. But when MT herself got sick, her groupies made sure she got the absolute best in modern medical care.
Is this Hitchens speaking? No, this is Susan Shields, who spent 9 and a half years working for Mother Teresa until she finally got disgusted and quit:
The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had no effect on our ascetic lives and very little effect on the lives of the poor we were trying to help...
Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty. Spending money would destroy that poverty. She seemed obsessed with using only the simplest of means for our work...
In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused.
http://arcticbeacon.com/articles/6-Jun-2007.html
So does your falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus rule apply here too? Or is that only for outspoken atheists?
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)It's a favorite tactic of folks to try to attack what Hitchens wrote (on many topics) on the basis of anything but the merits. Yes, he was a drunk, an ass and a bully at times, but he almost always knew far more of what he spoke about than his critics, who (just as here) generally shrank from engaging him about the facts on the ground.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)"but he almost always knew far more of what he spoke about than his critics"
Right!
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)You and your ilk here just can't help but lie and make things up at every turn, can you? Because to you, facts don't matter, not even in the long run, only attitude. If you'd care to dispute any of the FACTUAL claims Hitchens made about Mother Teresa with some actual FACTS of your own, have at it. But we both know you'll have nothing but more snark.
And if you're going to ignore the advice, the efforts, the knowledge and the achievements of anyone who was an SOB at times, or anyone who was ever wrong about anything, you're going to wind up mighty ignorant and empty.
Oh....wait...
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Actually he said quite the opposite. Rather than okasha's claim that he supported water boarding after having it done to him, he actually said it was clearly torture.
Why aren't you going after okasha for blatantly lying? Easier for you to attack your "fellow" atheists?
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)Appearances are deceiving at times. If they are, in fact, atheists, I don't attack them for their atheism. I never attack people for their beliefs, only for their behavior and attitude toward others.
BTW, are you one of those guys who asks the cop who stops you for speeding, "Why me, officer? Why not those other naughty speeders? Bwah!"?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Hateful, imo. He called her a "Thieving, Fanatical Albanian Dwarf".
Rob H.
(5,349 posts)What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resistnot inflictit.
By Christopher Hitchens
...
This is because I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the mastermind of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. Hell, said one, from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.) But, hell, I thought in my turn, no Hitchens is going to do worse than that. Well, O.K., I admit I didnt outdo him. And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that Id like to try it one more time. There was a paramedic present who checked my racing pulse and warned me about adrenaline rush. An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case its of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, Any time is a long time when youre breathing water. I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
...
Which returns us to my starting point, about the distinction between training for something and training to resist it. One used to be toldand surely with truththat the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words waterboard and American could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.
Emphases added.
Edited to add title and intro.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)It's a good thing for this poster that she's not a vampire. Though she seems to have slunk back to the darkness in any event, after dropping her turds in the punchbowl.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Now, neoconservative pundit Christopher Hitchens has waded into the debate. In a new article for Vanity Fair, Hitchens - like several other journalists before him - underwent the procedure. "If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," noted Hitchens, who lasted roughly 10 seconds under the spout.
Hitchens cites the salient views of Malcolm Nance, a US counter-terrorism consultant who speaks eloquently against its use. "Mr Nance told me that he had heard of someone's being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite," recalled Hitchens, adding: "I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been 'dunked' this far."
Still, Hitchens cannot escape the grip of American exceptionalism that has so permeated his work since 9/11. "Any call to indict the United States for torture is a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down," he huffs.
For Hitchens, in America's pitched battle with "tormentors and murderers", the ends justify the means.
[link]www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/03/usa.civilliberties[/link]
Rob H.
(5,349 posts)From the article I linked above:
The team who agreed to give me a hard time in the woods of North Carolina belong to a highly honorable group. This group regards itself as out on the front line in defense of a society that is too spoiled and too ungrateful to appreciate those solid, underpaid volunteers who guard us while we sleep. These heroes stay on the ramparts at all hours and in all weather, and if they make a mistake they may be arraigned in order to scratch some domestic political itch. Faced with appalling enemies who make horror videos of torture and beheadings, they feel that they are the ones who confront denunciation in our press, and possible prosecution. As they have just tried to demonstrate to me, a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. As they have just tried to demonstrate to me, a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.
Against it, however, I call as my main witness Mr. Malcolm Nance. Mr. Nance is not what you call a bleeding heart. In fact, speaking of the coronary area, he has said that, in battlefield conditions, he would personally cut bin Ladens heart out with a plastic M.R.E. spoon. He was to the fore on September 11, 2001, dealing with the burning nightmare in the debris of the Pentagon. He has been involved with the sere program since 1997. He speaks Arabic and has been on al-Qaedas tail since the early 1990s. His most recent book, The Terrorists of Iraq, is a highly potent analysis both of the jihadist threat in Mesopotamia and of the ways in which we have made its life easier. I passed one of the most dramatic evenings of my life listening to his cold but enraged denunciation of the adoption of waterboarding by the United States.
And since you (and the author of Guardian article) obviously glanced right past his conclusion to the Vanity Fair article, here it is again:
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)The fact that one's point is nonsense makes no difference.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)from this one? That would not be her history.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)She always slinks off and disappears for awhile after these smackdowns, but still comes back for more. Odd.
okasha
(11,573 posts)You can always be depended upon to believe that refusal to face facts on your part and your buddies' is a "smackdown.' Obviously you need this sort of fantasy to shore up a wobbling argument.
I really don't know why you guys seem so threatened by me. But since it's the same reaction you have to TMO, I daresay I feel rather flattered.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Worse case scenario, you lied. Hitchens did NOT defend waterboarding after he was waterboarded which is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what you claimed.
But, hey, keep digging your feet in the sand. It makes you look super awesome.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Hitchens did in fact defend torture by the US and allies. See the bolded part of my post.
Frankly, I'm disappointed in you. I had some respect for you right up until the point where you attempted to accuse the victiim of a malicious hoax of "stealing bandwidth" in order to mitigate what the perpetrator of the hoax had done. What a damn shame.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)From Hitchens after being waterboarded:
Does that sound like defense of waterboarding to you?
okasha
(11,573 posts)But you're cherry-picking. Yes, he admits that waterboarding is torture. That was implicit in what I posted. He also refuses to condemn the US and its allies for perpetrating and and continuing to use torture. As you point out, "waterboarding" is a specific item in the class "torture."
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Why can't you be a grown-up and just admit it?
okasha
(11,573 posts)N/T
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Yes, you are! I'm proud of you! We are all right in our own special little way!
trotsky
(49,533 posts)LMAO!
okasha
(11,573 posts)N/A
Vehl
(1,915 posts)Here is a thread I started on her a while back.
Shaming Mother Teresa - India
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x294102
A volunteer claims she witnessed mistreatment: "I've seen smacking... yanking around babies by their arms, letting their heads wobble." In a rare interview Mother Teresa's successor, Sister Nirmala, defends the mission but says she has no idea how much money it has "No-body knows -- it's God's maths". Critics argue that funds go to religious campaigns rather than poverty relief. Meanwhile, one of Mother Teresa's many supporters defends her legacy: "She is in the hearts of most people a saint..."
Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures
More at that thread link provided above.
Watch the video, where the Poor father of the kid who sent his kid to Teresa's charity shows the scars left on her due to the horrible punishment meted out for her...Also listen to the British Doctor; who has been conducting a free health clinic in Calcutta for decades recount the horrible practices common in Teresa's Charities.
Furthermore, watch and cringe as the current head of the Teresa's Charities justify these actions openly on TV!
The only reason why such a group of Child Abusers are thriving is that none of the world governments are willing to look into this.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Is the behavior reported in the facilities abnormal for the area or was the culture already there?
I am seriously interested in your viewpoint on this.
FWIW, I can't watch the video due to connectivity issues, but I did read your previous post on this. You had posted this prior to my participation in this group, so I am seeing it for the first time.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)for that kind of cruelty can you? Does it really gall you that much that someone acting purely from religious motivations could do such things, in direct contradiction to the agenda you and your father push here constantly, that you have to resort to "Well SHE didn't know what was being done" or "Everyone else was doing it"?
rexcat
(3,622 posts)concept for Mother Teresa. As Jesus was suffered on the crucifix it was important to her that she and others should also suffer to be more in touch with god and Jesus. This concept carried over to her charities and there mission. It is well documented that the sick and those in pain were and are under medicated when being treated by her missions. She is no saint.
It is unlikely you will get a response from cbayer. She does not like to be challenged.
unapatriciated
(5,390 posts)She took her vows of poverty and obedience very seriously. There are many who (like myself) experienced this type of thinking from some nuns. Punishments were not quite as harsh as burning but the nuns did not tolerate any type of disobedience. They did indeed use physical punishment. Many nuns who received their orders during Mother Theresa's time, viewed critical thinking or too many questions as being disobedient.
Bottom line they thought they were right, that is what they learned and they carried it on. Sister Theresa thought along those same lines regarding vows of poverty and obedience, not evil just misguided. Her charities could have provided much more to those in need and better medical treatment if she had not been such a miser about "her" vow of poverty.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)input here.
"Not evil, just misguided" is what I would have presumed.
Sorry for what you went through. I hope that things have improved in these institutions over the years.
unapatriciated
(5,390 posts)Not to mention the humiliation she could rain on you.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)okasha
(11,573 posts)I went to a Catholic school during that time and in the '50's, and I never encountered the proverbial "mean nun." My city had three K-12 Catholic schools at the time, and the only students I ever heard of being struck were boys who got paddled by the Marist Brothers at the boys-only school. Public schools also employed corporal punishment at the time, some of it reportedly administered immediately in the classroom, some in the principal's office. One public-school teacher actually tied a friend's brother to his desk.
Give me those old-time Ursulines any day.
Vehl
(1,915 posts)Also no one in that region/culture brands their 5 year old child with a hot knife for supposedly trying to steal something.