Random Thoughts Number.....hell I don't know...they're random!

Just a few random thoughts for the day.
My wife came back from a Catholic mass and told me the Knights of Columbus in all their regal glory came to present 924.00 for the parish school. Really??? They spend that much for their costumes making believe they are some royal guard of Christ. These are men in the Catholic Church who refuse to understand Columbus was a participant in the slaughter and enslavement of all the indigenous people he and his minions came across. He was about as Christian as Satan himself as he killed, tortured and enslaved a peaceful population of people. He stole their land and possessions in his obsessive need to bring a large bounty back to his queen.
So why do men in the 21st century continue to honor such a man? Why does the good Christian Catholic church allow and endorse this sect of men who also refuse to view women as their equals?
Another thought occurred to me about the new Pope. He professes to care about the impoverished and most in need. Does this mean he will take some of the huge wealth of his church to a pawn shop or auction to get the money needed to feed the people? Does this mean he will look at the epidemic HIV in parts of  Africa and tell the Catholic NGOs and other representatives to provide condoms to help stem the epidemic? Will he look at the Catholic NGOs running health care institutions....like the Sisters of Mercy....or mercenaries...:? Will he demand they cease the harassment of the poor to pay the over-inflated hospital bills? Will he demand they stop charging the poor more for their medical care than any other population group because they lack insurance? I think not.
Another thought. There's a lot of discussion about new spending on mental health care here in Colorado. Thanks in part to the repeated slaughters of children and innocents by crazed killers wielding assault rifles, politicians (and the NRA) have decided the mentally ill need some attention. Of course few are stating the mentally ill are at least ten times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrate violence. It's the alleged sane among us that are killing wives, children, bosses and any who have pissed them off. It's the negligence of adults who ignore the wars in the hoods of the poor that have gone on since the 60s. They're black and brown kids, so who gives a damn?
But blaming the gun violence and culture of violence on the mentally ill is easier than addressing the reasons for the constant killing or limiting access to assault weapons like most other civilized nations.
I wonder if all this money will go to treating the mentally ill in need of expanded services or if the local centers will carry on with the ineffective care of just providing pills and the discrimination against those without benefits.Working in the field, I sincerely doubt the money will improve the level of care or go to pay staff better or increase staff and lower case-loads.
Ok, another thought. Do the people realize they've been duped into austerity and draconian cuts to programs to help the poor and middle class? Research for TBI has been delayed because of the sequestration initiated by the neo-cons in Congress and acquiesced to by the liberals. Do the people realize state governments are being controlled by these rich neo-cons and they intend of giving the rich 1-2% large tax cuts at the expense of the middle class and poor? They intend on dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at a local level as much as they can. They intend on taking over elected local governments like the city of Detroit and replacing the government with "managers" of the neo-con governor's choice. Managers who just happen to have thousands of dollars of liens on his own home. OOPS....how'd that happen? But surely he will bring Detroit out of financial hell better than the elected mayor and city council. Just has to break a few union agreements, take away from the poor and redistribute the wealth and power to the rich. And chase those black folks out of the city.
So, my racing thoughts and tangential thinking really disturb me. I think something's happening here. What is is ain't exactly clear. There's a man over there who tells me "beware".......while we sleep there are dark forces who intend we'll sleep less peacefully and have great anxiety in our lives. They intend on making the majority of us their economic slaves that never question the system of oligarchy. Or is that just paranoia?