Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Another Report, you best read (follow link)

found at Huffington Post .... Of the 1,714 Americans nationwide surveyed by the Waco, Texas-based Baptist university, 40.9 percent said they "strongly agree" that "God has a plan for me," while 32.2 percent "agree," 12.3 percent "disagree" and 14.6 percent "strongly disagree." Those who strongly agree that God has a plan were more than twice as likely as those who strongly disagree that God has a plan to say that "the government does too much" -- 52.6 percent to 21 percent.

Similarly, the strong believers in God's plan were more than twice as likely as the strong disbelievers to say that healthy people should not receive unemployment benefits -- 52.6 percent to 21.1 percent.

Generally, "people who believe in government deregulation believe in God's plan," said Baylor researcher Paul Froese. "Economic perspectives are intricately linked with different cosmologies."

The survey also showed a relation between income and belief in God's plan, with the strong disbelievers being more than twice as likely as the strong believers to make $100,000 or more a year. A similar, albeit somewhat weaker, connection was found between education level and religious belief. While 42.6 percent of the strong disbelievers had earned a college degree, just 32.8 percent of the strong believers had.

The Baylor survey appears amidst a debate on what lessons politicians should draw from religion to address issues such as the nation's deficit. On the one hand, religious voices such as Sojourners, a Washington, D.C.-based evangelical organization, have called for "shared sacrifice" among Americans to help the "least of these," a phrase drawn from Matthew 25:45. At the same time, others have advocated what's called the "prosperity gospel," which includes the belief that God will provide and financially bless those who believe.



Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Friday, February 25, 2011

Document

1 comments

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The bill is SB 1028 in the Senate and HB 1353 in the House.

Can anyone say 'Unconstitutional'?

Proposed law is 'nonsense,' critic says
Tennessee bill would jail Shariah followers

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.



Wonder more

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 comments

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Missionaries of Hate

0 comments

Monday, November 15, 2010

On Zinn and Davis



Chris Hedges: The Death of the Liberal Class


read his article on truthout 'The Origin of America’s Intellectual Vacuum'

History know our history


I'm still as pink as ever!
Wonder

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Thursday, September 23, 2010

US super power

Took a whole lot more devastation on the American family to prove to the world, who's super power, to take on that challenge is to invite the challenge. Just monkey sense. watch

Well, the influence



playlist

Labels: , , , , ,

0 comments

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Tell it Tillman!

Seems Christian tensions are wide spectrum about now, gay marrige, the mosque and the Playing the Atheism Card Against Pat Tillman’s Family, and:

Posted by InfoWarrior on Tue, Aug 10, 2010, at 12:43 AM:


From Abby's way

Labels: , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

On the other side of Pakistan

When there is time, time to ask, time to search we may find another reason to the unreasonable.







Wonder endorsing, well no, examining well yes. Why?, just because. We get it.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Back on the Trail


I have few words, yet, just amazing as to what people will say.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Monday, May 14, 2007

A wonder of, begins a quest EVEn if answers to be found with no ends

Our way of life, where in we live and breast cancer
and
Newsweek takes on gender issues for those with issues of those of differences and diversity, thanks for sharing this news, Curtis Via intersexulite.org.
May 21, 2007 NEWSWEEK
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18618970/site/newsweek/

ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE:
The Mystery of Gender

Rethinking Gender: What Makes Us Male or Female?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18618970/site/newsweek/
My Life as a Transgender Politician
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18660657/site/newsweek/
A NASCAR Racer On Her Sex Change
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18619862/site/newsweek/
Alexis Arquette on the Politics of Gender Change
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18615747/site/newsweek/
Journalist Christine Daniels On Her New Life
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18615905/site/newsweek/
Q&A: A Prudential VP on Her Transition
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18617786/site/newsweek/
Live Talk: Rethinking Gender
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18630323/site/newsweek/
Resources for Gender and Transgender Issues
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18629920/site/newsweek/

Culture issues in the news read the Headlines At MoJo Blog

UAE: No Melamine In Food, Please, And No Food On Melamine, Either.

via CLG News of natural wonders

Hundreds of Birds Falling from the Skies Above Florida --Smoke From Wildfires Leave Birds Dazed and Confused 13 May 2007 The clouds of smoke produced by the fire are causing hundreds of birds in Broward and Miami-Dade counties to drop out of the sky or crash into the windows of buildings. Wildlife officials say hundreds of yellow warblers have died.

Tell the Bush Administration to protect polar bears and their critical habitat (Polar Bear SOS) Polar bears are completely dependent on Arctic sea ice to survive, but 80 percent of that ice could be gone in 20 years and all of it by 2040... The Bush Administration's proposal to list the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act is a crucial first step toward ensuring a future for these magnificent Arctic creatures. Yet the administration's proposal does not designate "critical habitat" for protection, even though melting habitat from global warming is the main threat to the polar bear's survival. Send a message urging the Bush Administration to finalize the listing of the polar bear and designate its critical habitat.

Climate change to force mass migration --1bn likely to be displaced by 2050, says report --Environmental factors will exacerbate existing crisis 14 May 2007 A billion people - one in seven people on Earth today - could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years as the effects of climate change worsen an already serious migration crisis, a new report from Christian Aid predicts.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Windows into their own frustrations

Tennessee passed a bullying law, that is progress, but hidden away into the halls and corridors of school class structure born to the self righteous and continued in false family structures . . . . the hum of hate.

Read and learn, The Queer Thing About School Shootings and just maybe parents, teachers, students, people of all races, all religions, all people will see how harmful words can really be, deadly.

Labels: , , , , , ,

0 comments

Friday, May 04, 2007

Bill Moyers Journal: A Brief History of Disblief

". . . Bill Moyers talks with Jonathan Miller about his upcoming series and his views on religion in the modern world. Jonathan Miller's series "A Brief History of Disbelief" will air on many PBS stations across the country starting May 4."


A little understanding goes a long way to recourse the discourse. This will help those with little understanding of what it means to be an Atheist.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Misleaders and pompous frauds one and all!

The Apostles of Deception by Charles Sullivan
"It appears to me that the majority of the American people are followers who willingly bow down to that which they perceive as authority. The people want to be lead. They have a deep seated desire to be directed, to be told not only what to do, but how to live. Millions of them are waiting for a messiah to appear who will lead them to the Promised Land—a messiah that requires nothing from them before the judgment day. They only have to profess their faith and to follow—to do as they are told by the religious hierarchy, and wait.

Of course, followers require leaders, and that makes them vulnerable to charlatans and frauds. The trouble with leaders and followers is that leaders often mislead and followers obediently trail them to the very gates of hell. During the course of the journey, superstition and ignorance gradually replace rationality and knowledge. Truth gets lost in the shuffle or is cast into the flames of desire. Thus we find ourselves standing at the brink of an old and familiar abyss, the onslaught of a new age of darkness and fear. Lies supplant truth, darkness replaces light. War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. The lessons of history remain unlearned and endlessly repeat themselves in rhythmic cycles of human comedy and tragedy."
to read more and I highly recommend it

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Culturally Challenged

Of “Losing Moses on the Freeway”and “American Fascists, the Christian Right and the War on America,” Chris Hedges sees through wisely eyes’, what’s really going on. As he points out in this article “When They Came for the Homosexuals ...

“My ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, told us to watch closely what the Christian right did to homosexuals. He had seen the same tactic in Nazi Germany, where he spent 1935 and 1936 working with the underground anti-Nazi church known as the Confessing Church. The Nazis also used “values” to launch state repression of opponents. Hitler, days after he took power in 1933, imposed a ban on all homosexual organizations. He ordered raids on places where homosexuals gathered, culminating in the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and the permanent exile of its director, Magnus Hirschfeld. Thousands of volumes from the institute’s library were tossed into a bonfire. The stripping of these Germans’ civil rights was largely cheered by the public and the German churches. But it legitimated tactics, outside the law, that would soon be employed against others. Adams said homosexuals would also be the first “social deviants” singled out and disempowered by the Christian right, but not the last.”

Born different ok, born wrong is not the way at all.

Silence is no more than agreement with the puritan motives of the ‘Christian Right’, after all the suit from the smoke is washed from the mirrors, you have pure motive.

Still talking about Soul Force, and the force they fight.

Just in the nick of time as it whist by I caught a glance, another all so illustrative a story, as their true intentions, the Christian Right. Southern Baptist Closet Case Mohler Backs Changing Sexual Orientation Of Fetus In The Womb. If not for the perfection of man, maybe there would be the perfection of a god. My immediate concern here would be if no method, no treatment or surgery could ‘fix’ the gay mutant, how far will ‘they’ go to insure perfection, will they negate the unlikable? Abortion or any medical procedure taken from the realms of choice and placed within a mandate of law such a man would prescribe, is truly the most derailment to any democratic society, social or capitalistic. Vandals and Law joined in the obstruction to Soul Forces right to free speech, thru silence and unjust political behind the misuse of laws.

Reading thru the comments to Chris Hedges article “When They Come for the Homosexuals...”, some very employable points are being made. Central to these is ‘I’ll leave you be, just leave me be’, rings true to the freedom of religion principal. It is simple, it is of one element, makes one type of bonding cohesion that builds a peaceful structure even in society. A peaceful society has yet to exist without it, as it reflects a brightness glimmering off respect. When they wrote about it in their bible it should had said ‘you don’t have to love your neighbor, just like them enough to leave them be, let them live’ someone later wrote something near that moral ‘love and let live’.

Nazi reflection is not necessarily a liberal reaction, if you know history you can’t deny the resemblances, not so distant history. If those scare you, your heart and mind’s in the right place no matter your religion. If this we point too, you see yet you remain silent, your just as culpable as those who’s ‘believe’ as in agrees with what the ‘Christian Right’ ‘believes’. Where the issues they choose to whale about, are not a believe it or not issues at all. Directed to those of another view, idea that forms it’s basis on scientific facts, not superstitious beliefs. There is genetic evidence of homosexual behaviors, naturally occurring that have been extensively studied and many scientific materials published contrary to what Dobson, Farewell or any Mohler spew as something ‘believable’. There is physical proof there is more than just two sexes of the human species.

Thea post this comment and includes this poem, never printed enough I feel, for ever and never forget.
Here is Thea’s post:
A quarter of the way through Chris’s article I thought of Nazi Germany. It seems to me that everything is already in place here, or soon will be. Wire tap capabilities, ID cards or Driver’s license needed for practically everything. Cell phones can track one’s whereabouts.
Last time it was the Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles…… Who will it be this time? Most likely the Arabs, and Muslims in general. The propaganda and stereotyping against them seems reminiscent of the propaganda and stereotyping against Jews years ago, except perhaps the violence factor. I guess the Holocaust wasn’t horrifying enough to wake people up. Chris seems to suggest we’re on the road to reliving it.
Framing the Debate By George Lakoff is a book that sheds light on how Chris’s premise is accomplished.
But the most disturbing of all is, that most of us go only as far as the nearest blog to voice our concern, even outrage. Most of us feel powerless to do something or to know what to do to stop the madness. Our politicians are bought and paid for and perhaps all have their own dirty little secrets that could be exposed if they rebel. But most likely, it’s that they like their privileged jobs and know who’s paying the bills to keep them in power. And most don’t see or want to see the big picture. It’s every man for himself and the country be damned.
Remember the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892––1984). He wound up in a Nazi concentration camp for speaking out.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Which reminds me of my favorite from John Dunne, Meditation XVIII believe the last lines of which go like this:
“No man is an island entire to itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ……. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”



Not as much a race but is, immigrants in all have not found our hospitality we possessed seven even eight years ago. But that group with even children of that group held in prisons, jails and internment camps in Texas is of a majority Spanish decent. Children denied sunlight for weeks, deprived of their own families contact, treated like violent criminals. What allows such righteous people to know of this outrage against humanity its self yet do nothing, say nothing while draping themselves in the flag and belted with a sheath for the sword of family honor.

Such a line drawn, that one so thin and frail as the ‘wall’ between church and state, to even call it a wall would emphasize in our times something with just as much significance. Narrow path, ‘the rule of law’, is not just a phrase, there are laws to building laws. As prescribed by our own form of democracy in it’s founding, after all it is not founded on thin air, there is something rock hard there, in that binding of states into this republic that upholds the democracy for all to enjoy.

How did these Godwhacks and capitalist skinned the republican party? How did the Godwhacks and Capitalist pigs cloaked as principled republicans while whistling the tune ‘a sucker born every day’ commits high crimes and there is nothing misdemeanor about partisan stacking the courts or the law enforcers? With mega-phones, tv, radio, big screen audiences, nation wide side by side phone banks like devils from heaven. By building the personality of the judiciary, attorney generals of those who follow a certain creed, religion or belief is more horrid than the preaching of General Doom during the post invasion of Iraq, with his illustration of evil. Just as personified, the use of the word evil to portray a force, unseeable, caught tied tight in a sack {gitmo} it would terrify you too much to even look upon it, this evil.

The deals doused with Texas Tea drunkards during the conspiring this trail to their greater cause, these godwhacks and capitalist pigs.

Under the cloudy skies here in my neck of the woods, without a tv, this computer, or a radio there was no Saddam Hussein, there is no suicide arabs, not here any ways. Here in my community, county, town there is no threat to me or any of my neighbors, no matter what anyone predicts. Spring comes with deep sighs filled with fresh rain washed air, the bugs sing us to sleep at night, the song birds wake us up of the mornings even the rooster signals the end of snooze buttons. Your president had served up spring Texas Tea and you’ve drank sense March 03, the Wilsons didn’t find so sweet. Not like our friendly leaf teas in nearly everyone pantry Texas Tea is so potent its advised not to drink alone. Its truly a battle of whiskeys that induce the intoxication, whiskeys from around the world, a world whiskey war. You’ve drank your tea, set back and ‘enjoyed’ the entertainment, accustom to those who regularly drink Texas Tea. As the oil mob family ‘the Haliban’ (who did this war benefit?) that has stolen tax payers moneys to profit failing commerce the same that danced on the tables in Azores drunk on Texas Tea, spirits mixed with spirits of evangalinguistic logic swirled or shaken in a drunken state of power, prance more like a tyrant and emperor of a world inflicting on that world their own version of law and order.

Systems, processes, governing structures separate in duties insures justice the chain that drives the democratic wheel that has been so broken. Evangelistically, a suspicious flame that burnt on this Texas Tea, when righteous reasons unfounded, with the snubbing of fundamental biblical truths, justifying mass destructions of life as a crusade to liberate Iraqi peoples, they holler their visions of self perfection in their desires for them and us.

Politicians ties to these groups that discourage Soul Force and other organized advocates forget maybe that for a stability of peace you need stability of justice, in oppressing a minority there is no justice whatsoever, the ties that bind. Obama is one recently I read this article and how it relates, yea all is relative to us wanders.

How Barack Obama Learned to Love Israel
by Ali Abunimah
A decade ago the author, a Palestinian activist based in Chicago, thought wishfully of then State Senator Barack Obama: "If only a man of this calibre could become president one day." No longer. Obama now identifies totally with the political line of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most relentlessly aggressive arm of the Israel lobby. Although saddened by Obama's "about-face," the author isn't surprised. "He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power."


Strange alliances have formed, double agents of dual culture Zionist too also have their own mirror image. By finding common enemies they in this alliance, this alliance on either end, either side could, will and has lead to genocide. But in all this we find other good souls with sound metaphysical minds, those minds that can truly tell what is good and what is evil as these Mayan Indians work, we should all burn a little sage now and then.
Mayan Indians, victims of genocide at the hands of a succession of U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictators, this week announced they would attempt to "purify" a site visited by George Bush, to remove any evil spirits the president might have left there



Just as the vandals prove another hateful aspect of 'The Great White Way', we too are driven to speak up and shout out untrue their lies to be, we paint it black as the night they claim we came.

Another fight to note, progressive or not, it is a challenge the very brave have taken before like the one before from long ago.

Moo-Moo

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Friday, February 23, 2007

Metaphysically speaking

Some rumors across the metaphysical world wide web, referring to the 'new age' and some UFO and conspiracy sites have linked to some weird news about men in black visiting churches in north Carolina speaking Hebrew. Leaving a community to wonder, and clearly confused. I say confused because the police are asking for information, suspecting something, I wonder what is so wrong in what they did. I am posting the story here for my metaphysical and religious friends who keep me as a friend despite our sometimes heated debates. Oh, and you know who you are, some we have never met, some know me very well. A Jeff Wells has this and more compiled, although I do not understand why he has to be on the defensive but the situation has caused him to close the comments on the subject. He must be cool with that fig leaf and all ;)
Kannapolis churches abuzz about 'disruptions'
wcnc.com
By Nicole Konkal

Kannapolis Police say something very bizarre happened at several churches this past Sunday. It was a disruption, they say, that left some church goers fearful and others saying "it's a God thing." Nearly a dozen churches reported the same thing to police: three men walked into their church during Sunday morning's service. They walked right up to the pulpit and began speaking Hebrew. David Lewkowicz is the pastor at West Point Baptist Church and understood what they were saying."They said things like, 'God is peace, God is love, God is comfort, God is joy.' That is all they said to me," Lewkowicz said.The men stayed at the churches for about two or three minutes, then left."They didn't say anything bad about God or offend the church in anyway. They came in peace and left in peace," Lewkowicz said.Still some other congregations are concerned about exactly what the men may have been up to. One church reported the men dropping to their knees as they entered the door, then they got up and left.Lewkowicz said it comes with the territory of being a pastor – he has to be ready for just about anything on Sunday mornings."We have to be open minded to anyone that may walk through those doors. Some people thought it was cool that some Hebrew guys came in and I understood them. They think it was a 'God thing.' We will have to wait and see," Lewkowicz said.Police said these men didn't commit a crime. If they had refused to leave, it would have been a misdemeanor offense. But the church pastors said they were peaceful and posed no threat at the time.Nevertheless, police want to know who these men are and what their intentions were. If you have any information you are asked to contact the Kannapolis police department, 704-920-4000.

Someone should call the number in Kannapolis, and read this to them.

The History of Church Electioneering
Houses of worship have been involved in America's political process since our nation's birth, and they will continue to play an important and increasing role in our society's evolution. The nation's courts and laws have upheld the rights of religious entities--and all charitable organizations--to participate in the political process, while simultaneously upholding the separation of Church and State. However, organizations and the courts continue to wrangle with questions regarding the exact nature and scope of political activity in which houses of worship may participate. Attention to this issue has increased greatly through introduction of H.R. 235, the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act, sponsored by U.S. Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC). The legislation would allow
tax-exempt houses of worship to intervene directly in partisan political campaigns by endorsing and opposing candidates for public office.
Jones and other proponents of the bill argue that the free speech of clergy is stifled by the absolute prohibition on partisan electioneering. However, the IRS already permits churches and other nonprofit organizations to engage in issue advocacy on any issue they wish. Church and state must remain separate from one another to ensure religious freedom and societal plurism.
History of the 501(c)(3) Political Activity Prohibition Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson Amendment

(For a more detailed analysis of HR235 click here.)

. . . .
It makes sense to me, but when will it dawn on 'them' and they awaken with the reasoning, maybe when the cloud clears. From Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., founder and chair of Citizens for Legitimate Government

Surge, Or the Failure of God

Since the Surge splashes in the face of conventional wisdom, military expertise, the public will, and the international community, and yet it has become policy in spite of these, a very strong impulse must be behind it.

The surge, I argue, is the 'natural' extension of a religious conviction.

A cessation in force may signal lack of Power to the enemy. In Milton's Paradise Lost, this is the impression taken of God by Satan after his Fall:

But see the angry Victor has recall'd
His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the Gates of Heav'n: the Sulphurous Hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
The Fiery Surge, that from the Precipice
Of Heav'n received us falling, and the Thunder,
Wing'd with red Lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps has spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th'occasion, whether scorn,
Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe (I, 170-76, emphasis added).

continue you'll get it . . . and furthermore 2/25/07

Happy Birthday Wild Willie ;) drive safe

Labels: , , , , ,

3 comments

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A Focus on 'Focus on the Family'

!

Soulforce Launches Ongoing Civil Disobedience Campaign at Focus on the Family Headquarters

At approximately 1:30 p.m. on February 19, 2007, Dotti Berry and Robynne Sapp of Blaine, Washington were arrested and removed from Focus on the Family headquarters in police custody. The couple entered the building earlier in the day and refused to leave until the organization's founder, James Dobson, takes a step toward reconciliation with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities by ceasing his misleading statements about research on lesbian and gay parents.

"I am here today because I believed Dr. Dobson's teachings for many years, and it almost led to my suicide. My healing came from my acceptance of myself and my acceptance that God loves me exactly as I am," said Sapp. Sapp and Berry have toured Focus on the Family twice before to dialogue with visitors and staff about LGBT individuals and families.

Dobson has consistently misrepresented LGBT families with misleading references to social science research. In recent months, several social scientists -- including Dr. Carol Gilligan of New York University and Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale -- have publicly rebuked him for mischaracterizing their research conclusions. (For a video of Dr. Judith Stacey claiming Focus on the Family distorted her research, click here.)

. . . .

The Focus on the Facts campaign is coordinated by Soulforce, a national LGBT social justice organization founded on principles of nonviolence. For more than a decade, members and allies of Soulforce have confronted Focus on the Family's anti-gay rhetoric and publicized its harmful impact on the lives of individuals, parents, and children.

To read Dotti and Robynne's report click here.

http://www.soulforce.org

Update: a comment to this post from Christopher Hubble repeated here;

Video footage of Dotti Berry's and Robynne Sapp's "Sit-In" yesterday in Colorado Springs...

http://www.soulforce.org/article/1182

Christopher Hubble
"Focus on the Facts" Campaign Organizer
http://360.yahoo.com/cahubble05

and I will add a link for his books: http://www.hubblebooks.com/



Love provides an affirmation, no room to hate, and a clear view of truth. A very big welcome and thank you Christopher and others in Colorado for what you do, it is the good fight.

Labels: , , , , ,

1 comments

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

To Replicate a Goddess such as Amaterasu

Holidays about love , about foundations in life and presidents, reflect considerable differences as practiced in different cultures.

In Japan traditionally the females presents the chocolates to the male, and their National Foundation Day has morphed into Foundation Day or Freedom of Faith Day for the 'Christian' parts of today's Japan.

It took an atomic bomb to kill the Goddess' reign over the people of Japan, the illustrative moan of humiliation this mortal task of excepting the reality of being only human.

The lessons of the shame of prescribing genocide on another nation should never be forgotten. At the same time, to sit in judgment of a part of society and its differences as faults. It took a collective agreement the actions taken, a divine death or replication as his mortal self lived on when the emperor was forced to renounce his claim divinity. Allowing in the new constitution freedom of conscience and religious freedoms, preventing as well as reassuring a clear division from governmental guided by divine entity from two thousand six hundred and some years ago. Amaterasu was dethroned in 1946, it took an atomic bomb, she lived approximately 1500 years from 660 BC to 1946, as some celebrate still her enthroning in honoring Foundation Day or celebrate her dethroning in honoring Freedom of Faith Day.

It illustrates as it should this profound lesson, the tragic ones along with the finer structures this society based its foundations and form of government that lead this long pretense of being of such a being, super naturally powered form a collective of a certain faith in a certain deity, Amaterasu. Just as I wonder why this seems so ironic, the exact same iconic ironic ism that frustrates those who express 'getting nowhere' reaction to the church and state arguments, to highlight one example and my own post Oh yes that always.

Culture could have no better mirror, but our attention that peace has prescribed for our efforts and time, I beg a moment is all it takes to ponder such as ironic-isms. I followed this examining if I should take also the name Spartacus, the Edwards Bad Girls of the Blogosphere where a mer word, tolerance was so turned and flipped on it's very definition by Donahue. I found history of another, who's claim to divinity may have been it's greatest fault, like a cracked foundation from the start.

This illustrates for those reading the revisionist version of our own national founding in interpretation the arguments that wondered through the authors to our constitution so many fine men before so honored. Those believing as if history of man and history of a deity to be of little difference a reality where quotes are reassigned to fit the myth, and others are forgotten to weaken an opposing opinion.

So am I Spartacus

Labels: , , , , , ,

0 comments

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Oh yes that always

Seems this is one constant we should continue, as key.
from Joan Chittister's article "Oh no, not that again", America's approach vs Europe she says of the question "What is the place of religion in U.S. politics?". Continues on very well, reasonable reasons as to why this is and should be treated as an 'Oh no, not again". Or should it?
"Interestingly enough, the country founded to provide freedom of religion for all its citizens, to protect the church from repression by the state, to outlaw the very idea of an establishment church that had been the ruination of so much of Europe, the country that set out to erect a wall between church and state, is the country that today struggles with the issue most of all." read it
Watada mistrial or attempt to stop the military's response if held to the task of weighing the justice in war. Just as individuals build moral compass, more so should a collective, especially an army with the power to protect or destroy. Like a god.
US IS provoking a new nuclear arms race, that statement needs to be read and heard, around our local media. It means jobs, local jobs as it does for other communities as it does for folks around here. The danger in me speaking about it, the dangerous reasons for why it is not worth it. Leaves you to wonder, where's the bigger story, and there is.
Wonder

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

0 comments

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Going over to shakes' place, there is a battle on

Carry on, the battle is as foreseen and as spoken in prophecy, hold to your principals, moral and ethical selves they so desire to muff. Edwards should keep the brave soldiers of the culture wars, we need more willing to stand up to oppression whatever form it might reveal its scary self as.

Catholics slam bloggers hired by Edwards for pro-gay, pro-choice posts

Two bloggers hired recently by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards were criticized Tuesday by a Catholic group for posts they had written elsewhere on the Internet. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded that Edwards fire Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan.

'Civil rights' I suppose free speech, free thought as such is not rights Catholics feel anyone should have. Sense it's ugly face introduced it's self in faith based federal funding, it seems to me it is more the government as what is now-a-days, is holding faith's to their task of providing to the communities they pilfer. Now that feels different as different as awards is to incentives, do churches and religions really want to answer to big brother?

Labels: , , ,

1 comments

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Some things you need to know before your world ends :)

ZNet Commentary
The Anti-Empire Report 
Some things you need to know before the world ends
December 27, 2006
By Bill Blum

Designer monsters

 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man seemingly custom-made for the White House in its endless quest for enemies with whom to scare Congress, the American people, and the world, in order to justify the unseemly behavior of the empire. The Iranian president has declared that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". He's said that "the Holocaust is a myth". He recently held a conference in Iran for "Holocaust deniers". And his government passed a new law requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia, à la the Nazis. On top of all that, he's aiming to build nuclear bombs, one of which would surely be aimed at Israel. What right-thinking person would not be scared by such a man?

 However, like with all such designer monsters made bigger than life during the Cold War and since by Washington, the truth about Ahmadinejad is a bit more complicated. According to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything about "wiping Israel off the map". In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all," which presumably is what would make the remark threatening.[1] Readers are advised that the next time they come across such an Ahmadinejad citation to note whether a complete sentence is being quoted, and not just "wipe Israel off the map".

 At the conference in Teheran ("Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision"), the Iranian president said: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom."[2] Obviously, the man is not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not occur through force or violence.

 As for the Holocaust myth, I have yet to read or hear words from Ahmadinejad's mouth saying simply and clearly and unequivocally that he thinks that the Holocaust never happened. He has commented about the peculiarity of a Holocaust which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. And he argues that Israel and the United States have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own imperialist purposes. He also wonders about the accuracy of the number of Jews -- six million -- killed in the Holocaust, as have many other people of all political stripes, including Holocaust survivors like author Primo Levi. (The much publicized World War One atrocities which turned out to be false made the public very skeptical of the Holocaust claims for a long time.)

 The conference gave a platform to various points of view, including six members of Jews United Against Zionism, at least two of whom were rabbis. One was Ahron Cohen, from London, who declared: "There is no doubt what so ever, that during World War 2 there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People." He also said that "the Zionists make a great issue of the Holocaust in order to further their illegitimate philosophy and aims," indicating as well that the figure of six million Jewish victims is debatable. The other rabbi was Moshe David Weiss, who told the delegates: "We don't want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed. They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression." His group rejects the creation of Israel on the grounds that it violates Jewish religious law in that a Jewish state can't exist until the return of the Messiah .[3]

 Another speaker was Shiraz Dossa, professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. In an interview after the conference, he described himself as an anti-imperialist and an admirer of Noam Chomsky, and said that he "was invited because of my expertise as a scholar in the German-Jewish area, as well as my studies in the Holocaust. ... I have nothing to do with Holocaust denial, not at all." His talk was "about the war on terrorism, and how the Holocaust plays into it. Other people [at the conference] have their own points of view, but that [Holocaust denial] is not my point of view. ... There was no pressure at all to say anything, and people there had different views."[4]

 Clearly, the conference -- which the White House called "an affront to the entire civilized world"[5] -- was not set up to be simply a forum for people to deny that the Holocaust, to any significant degree, literally never took place at all.

 As to the yellow star story of this past May -- that was a complete fabrication by a prominent Iranian-American neo-conservative, Amir Taheri. There are as well other egregious examples of Ahmadinejad's policies and words being twisted out of shape in the Western media, making him look like a danger to all that's holy and decent. Political science professor Virginia Tilley has written a good account of this. "Why is Mr. Ahmadinejad being so systematically misquoted and demonized?" Tilley asks. "Need we ask? If the world believes that Iran is preparing to attack Israel, then the US or Israel can claim justification in attacking Iran first. On that agenda, the disinformation campaign about Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements has been bonded at the hip to a second set of lies: promoting Iran's (nonexistent) nuclear weapon programme."[6]

 Ahmadinejad, however, is partly to blame for this "disinformation". I heard him in an interview while he was at the UN in September being asked directly about "the map" and the reality of the Holocaust, and he refused to give explicit answers of "yes" or "no", which I interpret as his prideful refusal to accede to the wishes of what he regarded as a hostile Western interviewer asking hostile questions. In an interview with the German news magazine, Der Spiegel (May 31 2006), Ahmadinejad states: "We don't want to confirm or deny the Holocaust."  The Iranian president is also in the habit of prefacing certain remarks with "Even if the Holocaust happened ... ", a rhetorical device we all use in argument and discussion, but one which can not help but reinforce the doubts people have about his views.

 It may already be too late. The conventional wisdom about what Ahmadinejad has said and meant may already be set in marble. Ban I Moon, at a news conference on December 14, after being sworn in as the new secretary-general of the United Nations, was asked by an Israeli reporter whether the United Nations was going to address the issue of Holocaust deniers. Ban replied: "Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any state or people."[7]  Let's hope that this is not very indicative of the independence of mind that we can expect from the new secretary-general. Myths die so hard.

Time magazine has just foregone its usual selection of "Person of the Year" and instead chosen "You", the Internet user. Managing editor Richard Stengel said that if it came down to one individual it probably would have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but that "It just felt to me a little off selecting him."[8]   In previous years Time's "Person of the Year" has included Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

 No one ever thinks they're guilty of anything. They're all just good ol' patriots.

 General Augusto Pinochet, who escaped earthly justice on December 10, was detained in London in 1999 awaiting a ruling by a British court on whether he would be extradited to Spain on a Spanish judge's warrant to face charges of crimes against humanity committed during his rule in Chile from 1973 to 1990. "I tell you how I feel," he told a London journalist at the time. "I would like to be remembered as a man who served his country, who served Chile throughout his entire life on this earth. And what he did was always done thinking about the welfare of Chile."[9]

 P.W. Botha, former president of South Africa died November 1. He was a man who had vigorously defended the apartheid system, which led to the jailing of tens of thousands of people. He never repented or apologized for his actions, and resisted attempts to make him appear before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. At one point he declared: "I am not going to repent. I am not going to ask for forgiveness. What I did, I did for my country."[10]

 As Pol Pot lay on his death bed in 1997, he was interviewed by a journalist, who later wrote: "Asked whether he wants to apologize for the suffering he caused, he looks genuinely confused, has the interpreter repeat the question, and answers 'No'. ... 'I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country'."[11]

"In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts, and life." Adolf Hitler, "Last Will and Testament", written in his bunker in his final hours, April 29, 1945.

Fast Forward now to 2036 ... George W. Bush lies dying, Fox News Channel is in the room recording his last words ..  "I know that people think the whole thing ... that thing in Iraq ... was a bad thing, and they hold it against me ... I appreciate their view .. I can understand how they feel ... But y'know, I did it for America, and the American people, and their freedom ... The more you love freedom, the more likely it is you'll be attacked ... Saddam was a real threat ... I still think he had weapons of mass destruction ... and someday we'll find 'em ... someday we'll say mission accomplished! ... that will really be a turning point! .. So I'm prepared to meet my maker and whatever he has in mind for me ... in fact I say Bring it on!"

William Shirer, in his monumental work "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", comments that Hitler's Last Will and Testament "confirm that the man who had ruled over Germany with an iron hand for more than twelve years, and over most of Europe for four, had learned nothing from his experience."[12]

Shirer tells us of another happening concerning Hitler's bunker, on April 12. When news of the death of President Franklin Roosevelt reached Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, he phoned Hitler in the bunker. "My Fuehrer," Goebbels said. "I congratulate you! Roosevelt is dead! ... It is the turning point."[13]

 The United States of Punishment

 2.2 million imprisoned ... "We're Number One! USA! USA! USA!" ... 7 million -- one in every 32 American adults -- either behind bars, on probation, or on parole ... When it comes to sentencing, let me tell you, people, and pardon my language, the United States is one hell of a tough mother fucker ... beginning with mandatory minimum sentences ... there are tens of thousands of young men rotting their lives away in American prisons for simple possession of a drug, for their own use, for their own pleasure, to enjoy with a friend, no victims involved. Do you think a person should be in prison if he hasn't hurt anyone? Either physically, financially, or in some other real and serious manner? Jose Antonio Lopez, a legal permanent resident with a family and business in South Dakota, was deported back to Mexico a while ago because of a cocaine charge -- Sale? No. Use? No. Possession? No. ... He told someone where they could buy some.[14] Another man was sentenced to 55 years in prison for three marijuana deals because he was in possession of a gun each time, which he did not use or brandish. Possession of a firearm in a drug transaction requires a much stiffer prison sentence. Four former attorneys-general and 145 former prosecutors and judges wrote in support of a lighter sentence for this man. The presiding judge himself called the sentence "unjust, cruel and irrational", but said the law left him no choice.[15]

 On December 1, a court in the Netherlands convicted four Dutch Muslims of plotting terrorist attacks against political leaders and government buildings. The heaviest sentence for any of them was eight years.[16] On December 13, a priest was convicted of taking part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide by ordering militiamen to set fire to a church and then bulldoze it while 2,000 people seeking safety were huddled inside. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced him to 15 years in prison.[17] Considerably lighter sentences than in the United States are generally a common phenomenon in much of the world. In the US, the mere mention of the word "terrorist" in a courtroom will likely bring down 30, 40, 50 years, life in prison, on the defendant's head, even for only thinking and talking of an action, an Orwellian "thoughtcrime", with nothing concrete done to further the plan.

 Colombian drug traffickers, British Muslims, and others accused of "terrorist" offenses strenuously fight extradition to the United States for fear of Uncle Sam's merciless fist. They're the lucky ones amongst Washington's foreign targets; they're not kidnapped off the street and flown shackled and blindfolded to secret dungeons in shadowy corners of the world to be tortured.

 For those who think that no punishment is too severe, too cruel, in the War on Terrorism against the Bad Guys, it must be asked what they think of the case of the Cuban Five. These are five Cubans who were engaged in the United States in the 1990s trying to uncover information about anti-Castro terrorists based in Miami, some of whom shortly before had been carrying out a series of bombing attacks in Havana hotels and may have been plotting new attacks. The Five infiltrated Cuban-American organizations based in Miami to monitor their actions, and they informed the Cuban government of their findings. The Cuban government then passed on some of the information to the FBI. And what happened next? The FBI arrested the five Cubans.

 The Cubans were held in solitary confinement for 17 months; eventually they were tried, and in 2001 convicted on a variety of charges thrown together by the government for the occasion, including murder (sic!) and conspiracy to commit espionage (probably the first case in American judicial history of alleged espionage without a single page from a single secret document). They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life. But the federal government's lust for punishment was still not satisfied. They have made it extremely difficult for their Cuban prisoners to receive family visits. Two of them have not seen their wives and children since their arrest in 1998; the other three have had only scarcely better luck.[18]   Yet another glorious chapter in the War on Terrorism.

 The making of official history

 It was just a passing remark in an Associated Press story about the recent overthrow of the Fiji government. "It was the nation's fourth coup in 19 years," the article noted, the first being the 1987 coup. "The takeover, like the previous three coups, has its roots in the ethnic divide between the descendants of ancient Melanesian warrior tribes and those of Indian laborers brought by former colonial power Britain to work in sugar plantations."[19] That's how "official history" is created and passed on, all the more effective because it's unconscious, unknowing, voluntary, and done by "objective" journalists.

 In 1987, Fiji Prime Minister Timoci Bavrada made Washington officials unhappy by identifying himself with the non-aligned movement (always a risk for a country during the Cold War), and even more so by taking office with a pledge to reinstate Fiji as a nuclear free zone, meaning that nuclear-powered or nuclear-weapons-carrying ships could not make port calls. When Bavrada's predecessor, R.S.K. Mara, instituted the same policy in 1982, he was put under intense American pressure to drop it. Said the US ambassador to Fiji that year, William Bodde, Jr., "a nuclear free zone would be unacceptable to the US, given our strategic needs ... the US must do everything possible to counter this movement." The following year, Mara dropped the policy.

 Two weeks after Bavrada took office, American UN Ambassador Vernon Walters visited the island. The former Deputy Director of the CIA had a long and infamous history of showing up shortly before, during, or shortly after CIA destabilization operations. Walters met with Bavrada, ostensibly to discuss UN matters. He also met with Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka, third-in-command of the Army. Two weeks later, Rabuka led a military coup which ousted Bavrada.

 The day after the coup, a Pentagon source, while denying US involvement, declared: "We're kinda delighted ... All of a sudden our ships couldn't go to Fiji, and now all of a sudden they can."

 These happenings, and others concerning the 1987 Fiji coup which I recount elsewhere [20], are of the type that the mainstream media typically ignore or, if obliged to deal with them, would have us believe are no more than coincidences.

 The anonymous author of the Associated Press story can be forgiven for not knowing of the American fingerprints all over the Fiji coup. The story has probably not appeared in any media except those on the left; if by chance a mainstream editor came across such a story he would likely dismiss it as a "conspiracy theory". Well, you can call people like me "conspiracy theorists" if you call everyone else "coincidence theorists".

 There are of course implausible conspiracy theories, but that is an altogether different matter.

 Some things to look forward to in 2007

 January: Insurgents in Iraq explode a nuclear bomb, totally destroying all of Iraq and everyone in it. Bush declares: "There will be no change in our policy of bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq. We will not cut and run."

 March: To add to the ban of liquids and jells aboard aircraft, solids are now banned. But gasses are still allowed.

 June: Halliburton is awarded a 300 million dollar no-bid contract to investigate contractor fraud in Iraq.

 September: New York City policemen run down, then shoot, mace, stab, beat up, and hang a Muslim resident of Brooklyn after thinking that he might be a suspected terrorist who fit the Terrorist Profile, was alleged to be on the Master Terrorist Watch List, and appeared to be carrying what they imagined, or think they imagined, might be a concealed bomb, or something of that nature.

 November: George W. announces that he will ask Congress to give embryos the vote.

 December: Gasses are now banned aboard aircraft. The only permitted forms of matter are now ionized atoms, electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and dark matter. (The last being what Dick Cheney is completely composed of, he is allowed aboard any airplane.) 

 NOTES

[1] AlterNet,
www.alternet.org/ , May 5, 2006

[2] Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[3] nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm (Cohen's talk); Telegraph.co.uk, article by Alex Spillius, December 13, 2006; Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[4] Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 13, 2006

[5] Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[6] counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html

[7] Washington Post, December 15, 2006, p.27

[8] Associated Press, December 16, 2006

[9] Sunday Telegraph (London), July 18, 1999

[10] Democracy Now (Pacifica Network), November 1, 2006

[11] Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong), October 30, 1997, pages 15 and 20

[12] paperback edition, p.1459

[13] Ibid., p.1441

[14] Washington Post, December 6, 2006, p.3

[15] Bulletin News Network, Inc., The White House Bulletin, December 4, 2006

[16] Associated Press, December 1, 2006

[17] Associated Press, December 13, 2006

[18] For the details of the case see my essay, "Cuban political prisoners ... in the United States", members.aol.com/bblum6/polpris.htm

[19] Associated Press, December 6, 2006

[20] William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, pages 199-200

William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir 

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire       

 
No twisted and spun words, only very possiblities of a hint of truth.
 
Iran may need nuclear power: study
Tue Dec 26, 2006 10:49 AM ET
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran's claim to need nuclear power may be genuine, given that it could run out of oil to export as soon as eight years from now, according to an analysis published on Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences.

The study's author, Roger Stern, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said investment in Iranian oil production had been inadequate to offset oil field declines and the explosive growth in domestic demand.

"I'm not saying that Iran will have no oil in eight years," Stern said in a telephone interview. "I'm saying that they will be using all of it for themselves."

The analysis, published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the Iranian government could become "politically vulnerable" from declining exports.

Oil exports account for about 70 percent of Iranian government revenue, said Stern, of the university's department of geography and environmental engineering.

He projected that in five years, Iranian oil exports may be less than half their present level, and could drop to zero by 2015.

"It therefore seems possible that Iran's claim to need nuclear power might be genuine, an indicator of distress from anticipated export revenue shortfalls," he wrote. "If so, the Iranian regime may be more vulnerable than is presently understood."

Iran has vowed to boost its uranium enrichment drive despite new U.N. sanctions approved on Saturday aimed at rolling back a nuclear program that the West fears is a prelude to atomic weapons.

Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns called on Japan, Europe, Russia and China to stop "business as usual" with Iran "to drive up the cost to the Iranians of essentially doing what they're doing" with uranium enrichment.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

 

Labels: , , , , ,

0 comments