The Thundering Standard

The problem with Herman Cain (is not what you think.)

2011-11-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't weighed in so far on this blog with my opinions on the 2012 Presidential campaign. That we are having shoved down our throats as early as mid-2011! (Why does this feel more and more like the kind of attitude that gets into the stores putting up Christmas decorations earlier & earlier all the time?) There's more than I can say in a brief amount of time, but allow me to share an email convo I had with a friend of mine, recently. You'll get the gist of my mindset on all of this. First however, allow me to digress by setting the stage for where we are at now.

Some might remember that a few weeks back, there was smack in the media over GOP Presidential hopeful Rick Perry, in regards to a racist name that his father's property used to be called by. I thought it was interesting, not because I give a rat's ass what somebody's dad did with whatever back in the day. But of the way one of Perry's Republican rivals, former Godfather's Pizza President Herman Cain suddenly got media attention for it. Cain, being African-American is naturally interested in something that would be going by a name offensive to Blacks. The whole Perry property scandal suddenly shifted the spotlight to Cain, who repudiated the former name ("Niggerhead") of the hunting grounds owned by Rick Perry's father.

Well, Perry ironically enough (as Mother Jones magazine has pointed out) may be a lot of things, but its' hard for me to call him a Racist when he has one of the least acceptable (to Conservatives) records on Immigration.

Directly following that, Cain got center stage in American Politics, as people's television addled brains suddenly got itchy fingers for "channel surfing" - to use a metaphor- into something else to watch. Herman Cain shot up in the polls, and peeps were giving his oddball "9-9-9" tax plan attention & consideration.

Was that planned? Ya think! And I think the Republicans themselves had a hand in it. The GOP has never had a particularly sterling record in terms of bringing women & blacks on board and needed separately to have a Black guy in the spotlight to counter the other party's "Black guy in the spotlight." So Cain broke an old White Conservative taboo: he played "the race card" (as they call it) and criticized Rick Perry. But Cain is not above Race-baiting himself, as seen in earlier scaremongering he engaged in over Muslim Sharia Law.

Wow, what gripping and gut wrenching stuff for those who care about the future of our Country, eh? Hell, I could just spend up nights worrying about Perry's family property and not have to bother with anything harder to wrap by mind around: The trillions of dollars being spent on the wars in the Middle East. The fact that both the last two Presidential administrations were riddled with Wall Street insiders. The loss of jobs to outsourcing overseas, and the obtuseness Washington DC repeatedly shows on the need to invest in Public/Private operation in order to spearhead projects that can put people back to work. The rising cost of Health Care and the fact that the recently passed bill by the Democrats is not likely to put a dent in the problem. The necessity of Universal Health Care in order to help young expecting mothers feel less like they need to choose Abortion.

Well, if Herman Cain and fellow GOP rival Michelle Bachman actually have a decent campaign and make it through most of the primaries as a formidable force, that will be a 1st. Then at least they won't have to pull another Sarah Palin and nominate someone just to throw them to the wolves and help their party save face for never having nominated an African American or Female candidate before that time.

But the truth is, I can't give a shit about the Republicans and their problems. I care about the corruptness of the system as it stands. Take a look at the following email convo I had recently with a friend and feel free to follow the link I offered on the illustrious Mr. Cain:

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Kevin Wayne<kevinwayne@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Jim,

Here's the gist of what I was saying: The media focuses on the tabloid stuff about Cain, but you don't hear as much about this:

The Koch-Cain Connection: IRS Urged to Probe Ties Between Cain Campaign and Billionaire Koch Brothers
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/8/koch_cain_connection_irs_probe_ties

Fyi, there's an African-American fellow on the Sojourners blog who mentioned that he was approached by some guys offering him money to defect to Conservative Republican politics. He says that Blacks get offers like that all the time, to change sides.
--
Ciao for now!

Kevin Wayne

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 2:04 PM, James Z***** wrote:

I read about that, re: the Koch Bros. But, in a capitalist country most news media focus most of their resources on what sells newspapers and gets ratings. I think it's as simple as that....and I bet the ratings DO go up when something like this business with the sexual harrassment claims or the Monica Lewinsky thing comes up. It's the same reason that a lot of the music and film industry focuses on sexual topics and scantily clad singers and actresses, rather then on talented folks who have something 'important' to say. Sex sells, and it's been proven over and over. They're just giving the American public what they want..Thankfully there are some 'higher minded' folks out there too, in journalism and films... and music too. But the majority always go for what sells newspapers.

Brief, but to the point. So here's where I'm at in all of this: Don't even bother me about what's sexy and entertaining. I wanna know what the stuff our prospective leaders are doing off camera. I keep my ears to Democracy Now, Counter Punch, RT, and The BBC for information you don't hear elsewhere. Don't tell me you don't want to bore me with the details. BORE me! Who's behind the Candidacy of Herman Cain? And what are these shadowy cockroaches that hide in the cracks hoping to gain by putting forth funding? More Military Buildup in the Middle East? Relaxed regulations on the Banking industry? Tightening of the screws by increasing the reach of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security in response to Islamophobic scaremongering?

Interestingly enough, Cain's fellow Black Conservative Alan Keyes actually agrees with me on this:

Herman Cain's professed beliefs are not deeply rooted or thought through enough to stand strong against the storm. He falls far short of being the person the nation needs in the White House to help us do so. And that's even without considering his complicity with the Federal Reserve Bank, the key strategic instrument used by the elitist faction (including Republican practitioners of John Maynard Keynes' variation of socialism) to usurp control of the material resources of the American people. More to come on that, though Mr. Cain's reiterated defense of TARP (the failed 2008 bank bailout Congress approved over the sensible and widespread objections of the American people) in the last GOP so-called debate has already awakened more people to the fact that his overacted populism is just a pose. He is the candidate from the Federal Reserve Bank. He carries more water for the Bank's manipulative oligarchs than for the grass-roots, middle-class Americans their elitist faction has systematically despoiled.

And check this quote from Keyes in response to Cain on the Muslim thing:

Herman Cain is certainly aware that the First Amendment withholds from the U.S. government the power lawfully to prohibit the free exercise of religion. But has he thought at all about the connection between that provision and the one that says that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for “any office or public trust under the United States”? Mr. Cain apparently believes that in today’s world Americans have good reason to distrust any follower of Islam. But the Constitution explicitly prohibits officials of the U.S. government from applying religion as a criterion for public trust, whatever their individual inclinations. This means that whatever his personal predilections, as president of the United States Mr. Cain (and anyone else elected to that office) would be required to set aside his personal views. He could not as a matter of public policy take the position that an office or public trust under the U.S. government (including a seat on the Supreme Court) would be withheld from someone of the Muslim or any other religion until they dispelled to his satisfaction some prejudice (however justified it seems to him, to me or to anyone else) as to their loyalty.

As I've noted before, Keyes is himself is angry, unreasonable and on the edge of extremism with his Birther activism and holier-than-thou Conservatism that makes it hard for anyone to be his political ally. Nonetheless, Keyes' admission to Cain's unconstitutional ideas and his ties to Wall St and of the Federal Reserve ought to give any reasonable person pause.

But what is my main interest? What should be the interest of anyone interested in the health and well being of future generations?

To put it in the most succinct words possible: Follow the money. Who's behind the candidates being shoved down our throats, and what are the interests they want pushed through as a result? That's what we need to be asking ourselves.

States look to right wrong convictions - USATODAY.com

2011-07-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

States look to right wrong convictions - USATODAY.com

ASHEVILLE, N.C. Kenneth Kagonyera had been in the county jail for 13 months when he finally gave in.

Prosecutors and investigators interrogated him repeatedly, he says, and told him he faced at least 25 years in prison for first-degree murder, with life or a death sentence possible. So he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2000 slaying of Walter Rodney Bowman.

It just kind of wore down on me," he later told the commission investigating whether the justice system wrongly imprisoned him.

Kagonyera was sentenced to 15 years in prison, as was his co-defendant, Robert Wilcoxson. Both continue to maintain their innocence.

In September, the two men are scheduled to have a hearing before a three-judge panel that could free them. The hearing comes after the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in April found enough evidence to indicate the men are innocent. That evidence includes the confession of another man and DNA testing that points to other suspects.

North Carolina is among a growing number of states taking steps to prevent and address wrongful convictions and grant greater access to biological evidence.

Until recently, that was largely the purview of the privately funded Innocence Project, which has been involved in 154 DNA exonerations in the USA since 1989, according the group's research director, Emily West.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering legislation that would establish a right to post-conviction DNA testing. If the bill passes, Oklahoma will be the only state that does not have a law in this area, according to the Innocence Project.

States look to right wrong convictions

The Innocence Project Website

Paul Krugman: No, We Can’t? Or Won’t? - NYTimes.com

2011-07-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

No, We Can’t? Or Won’t? - NYTimes.com

By Paul Krugman

If you were shocked by Friday’s job report, if you thought we were doing well and were taken aback by the bad news, you haven’t been paying attention. The fact is, the United States economy has been stuck in a rut for a year and a half.

Yet a destructive passivity has overtaken our discourse. Turn on your TV and you’ll see some self-satisfied pundit declaring that nothing much can be done about the economy’s short-run problems (reminder: this “short run” is now in its fourth year), that we should focus on the long run instead.

This gets things exactly wrong. The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing. Yes, there are huge political obstacles to action — notably, the fact that the House is controlled by a party that benefits from the economy’s weakness. But political gridlock should not be conflated with economic reality

John Ylvisaker: You've heard of him, haven't you?

2011-07-03T04:13:00.000-07:00

"...meanwhile, in America the Dylan of the bible scene, John Ylvisaker, was 'gently rocking the American churches from coast to coast with some new electric sounds'. Albums like 'Cool livin' (1967) and 'Follow me' (1968) swapped unquestioning praise for Lutherian folk songs and sardonic Dylanesque lyrics, and Ylvisaker became a hero to young '60s Christians who wanted to be hip and praise God." (Mojo magazine June 2001)

(Video: "Who Cares For The City" - John Ylvisaker)

Quite frankly, I don't care what you do and don't think is cool.

We all have our roots, our inspiration and influences that have made us what we are today. We take a little from here and a little from there. Sometimes we brush with things that don't seem to fit in the overall scheme of what we deem worthwhile. Music is very much this way. I think of this kid who I witnessed mouthing off on MySpace Music forums yesterday that The Ramones & The Sex Pistols were shit, and holding up a here today gone tomorrow entities like Madball & Agnostic Front as something important. But that's off topic.

What was my point again? Oh, yeah... My point is, having been exposed to his music sometime after leaving High School, confess to being captured buy the music of ...John Ylvisaker.

"Who?"

Back in the fall of 1983, or somewhereabouts (is that a word?) that time, I took a job managing a Christian Radio Station. Glamorous as that may sound, it wasn't. I found myself way out in the middle of nowhere in some jerkwater dive in Northeastern Utah, in a dilapidated double-wide trailer that didn't even have running water! There was in fact, an FCC licensed station set up in where most people would have had the bedroom. It did broadcast a signal. It also conflicted with the local educational TV channel. I got complaints that someone heard my broadcast on the one day I did in fact run a broadcast, that they heard me over the TV as well. Nice. Obviously a job going nowhere. One of these days I'll have to share more of this story, as it explains how I came to be more and more on different sides of the planet with the so-called Christian Right.

(Video: "Cool Livin" - John Ylvisaker)

But in a cardboard box of albums left there for my use, was a few vinyl offerings by the illustrious Mr. Ylvisaker. When I returned home to Oregon, I took one of his albums with me. Months later I was house sitting for the Pastor of my parent's church, and being alone and needing to fill up the time, I took John's album Cool Livin' and put it on the turntable. Back in the days of turntables.

I was instantly hooked.

The sound started out with a a country-ish acoustic finger-picked vibe that quickly shifted to a groovy 60's folk-rock beat. In comes the velvety baritone of John Ylvisaker, backed on instrumentation by his wife Amanda. The voice- well it's magnificent, even if it doesn't fit for Rock 'N' Roll. (As one Blogger describes it: "Perry Como on acid.") By the time the harmonies on the Chorus come around on "It's cool, cool livin' when a person lives forgiven," I'm ceasing to even care. Prior to this time I hadn't heard such moving acoustic guitar work since Randy Stonehill's 1976 Welcome To Paradise LP. In fact, John Ylvisaker's Cool Livin' was actually released in 1967, sometime before Larry Norman's Upon This Rock, generally considered by many to be the 1st Christian Rock album.

But getting back to Cool Livin' - if you like Dylan, Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds and other 60's music, it's hard not to like this as well. Or maybe even more. It's a feast for the ears for fans of 60's Folk/Psychedelic/Garage Rock. Think David LaFlemme (of It's A Beautiful Day) doing Donovan covers. In fact, Cool Livin' came out a full 2 years before It's a Beautiful Day's 1st album and their single "White Bird." It's interesting how John's own song "Despair" sort of foreshadows "White Bird" in a way. Other notable tracks (but by no means the only ones) on this album: "Who Cares For the City" sporting a demented Doors-like keyboard solo and an an aggressive garage-rock beat. "Do You Know What I've Done" - a bizarre re-telling of the story of Christ washing the Disciples Feet over a repetitive guitar riff and a Byrds/Doors kind of psycho-sitar sound. "Let Loose" the album closer which puts thing son an up note with the chorus "Hey let loose your love, let loose the love of God in you."

I found his shifting from overtly religious language to veiled metaphor that told stories or "parables" to be fascinating, quite liberating compared to the box that Calvary Chapel and other mainstream fundamentalist churches take when approaching music (that even if it's Rock, it has to be up-front lyrics because supposedly that "ministers" more.)

(Video: "Let Loose" - John Ylvisaker)

I actually covered one of his songs on a Sunday night church meeting in a mainstream quasi-charismatic kind of fellowship. The song was called "The Man And His Dog" which John recorded as a sort of jazzy number with spoken lyrics. I transformed it into a blues type of song. The metaphors of the unsettling nature of God's persistent forgiveness represented in a dog was lost by most people in the audience. It's what happens when you constantly serve baby-food and insist it's fillet mignon.' (However, that experience is not universal. I also performed the same song at a talent show put on by a different Evangelical Church, and it was better received at that time.)

(Video: "I Was There To Hear Your Borning Cry" - written by John Ylvisaker, performed by Ranger.)

Not only are John's lyrics a lot deeper and more Biblical than what some of the mainstream Christians responded to them as, but in time (and thanks to the Internet) I found out more about John Ylvisaker: He is a worship leader and hymn writer for the Lutheran Church. His song "Borning Cry" is a popular composition. It's true that the lyrics appear to support an Infant Baptism theological view. Would that most of us in the Believers'-Baptism tradition understand the depth of God being a part of all of life in some way, as much as this song reveals Him to be.

I keep searching the Internet for his music. I discovered that over the years, Cool Livin' has developed something of a cult following among collectors of rare and obscure 60's Psychedelic Rock. I emailed with someone at Ylvisaker.com a few years back (his wife Amanda Ylvisaker, perhaps?) I was told there was a possibility of Cool Livin' being reissued. That seems to have never materialized, and we a re pretty much left with what scraps we can find. (Or paying $150 for a vinyl copy since it has become a collectors item!) However, thanks to the blog Heavenly Grooves, the full album of Cool Livin' can be downloaded for free here! For me it was quite the joy to find. Sure, it's .mp3's taken off the record itself, not the original tapes remastered. But it's free, so I'm not complaining!

(Video: Cover of "Drawn To The Light" - written by John Ylvisaker.)

Thanks to the advent of YouTube and the websites that are broadminded enough to include John Ylvisaker among worthy Sixties/Psychedelic artists who never quite made it, there's some good samples to be found. Heavenly Grooves has also made most of the early John Ylvisaker discography available for free download in the form of .mp3's take from the vinyl albums.

Also, John has recorded a few other albums worth noting:

(Video: "The Old Man And The New" - John Ylvisaker)

A Love Song Dammit, I know it was also in that box, shoulda grabbed it! ;-) This one has some definite gems. IMHO, there's also some artistically ambitious misfires (singing a bit too high for his range, for example.) Nonetheless, the Ylvisaker genius is more than present throughout. The song "The Old Man And The New" has a witticism worthy of Johnny Cash. "Palm Sunday" kicks up the quality of the psychedelic folk that was his trademark in these says with a a jazzy touch. You can hear these in the above and below videos. But I just found out you can download some .mp3's from the scratchy vinyl version of the entire A Love Song album here!

(Video: "Palm Sunday" - John Ylvisaker)

(Note: I am including this YouTube video with the song Palm Sunday because it's a great song, obviously! But the picture on the video mistakenly implies that it's a song on Cool Livin.' It's actually from one of John's other albums: A Love Song.)

Follow Me This one is credited to "John & Amanda Ylvisaker" on the cover, but just to John on the label. In any case, some good sounding stuff is here. It more resembles standard "praise & worship" music, but with personality. It's pretty much straightforward contemporary sounds, not a lot of the artistic innovation that graced earlier projects, but no less a display of great musicianship. Is that John playing those Spanish-Guitar runs on "The Song Of The Stable Boy?" Owwww...! Highly recommended track: the Rockin' blues-folk Spiritual "Wade In The Water." And you can get free .mp3's of the whole Follow Me album taken off the vinyl (scratches and all) here. You're welcome. Be sure and visit Ylvisaker.com to hear his latest stuff.

Recorded At Housewarming For Fritzie (With David Blakeley) I'll let the Heavenly Grooves blog give the best description:

"Prepare to be jolted right from the start with one of the most guttural growls imaginable. What is this - a pirate drinking song? Tom Waits with a throat infection? By golly if this custom isn’t one of the most down-home lps ever made! As the title indicates, this is a live recording of two guitarists, a wailing harmonica, and a handful of guests gathered around a living room microphone and hamming it up (with bass mixed in later). It’s a marvelous blend of back porch acoustic blues, spirituals, and folk originals - a complete about face from John’s Avant Garde lps. Lots of lengthy twangy raw bluesy jamming backed by a party atmosphere of hoopin’ and hollerin’, clapping, singing along - indeed I know of one collector that’s gone so far as to say they must have been stoned!" Indeed, it is here that John cops a vocal style most suited to the contemporary audience that most of his earlier Folk-adelic music seems written for. Shame that he didn't use it more often! For here on this live home recording, Ylvisaker is at the peak of his artistic edginess and passion. But don't take my word for it. Heavenly Grooves has posted the whole Housewarming For Frtizie album for free .mp3 download. You can hear for yourself!

Don't Cut The Baby In Half You gotta love a guy who would name a Christian album this (based on the Bible story of King Solomon in 1 Kings 3:16-28.) In an age of play it safe bands like Switchfoot, you know this wouldn't be going on now! I wish I had a link to a free download of this one, but even the Heavenly Grooves blog is asking for it and John's own website lists it as sold out!

Anyone who happens to come across this rare gem, as I'm sure it must be, contact heavenly Grooves. Or better yet, you heard about it from me 1st. Contact me and I'll pass it along to the interested parties.

Meantime, between the videos, the downloads, and other links, there's more than enough here for anyone who might be interested in discovering the hidden treasure known as the music of John Ylvisaker. [-}

BREAKING NEWS: I have just been notified via the John Ylvisaker Fan Club page on Facebook, that plans are in the works to release a compilation of his earlier albums. I had posted a question re the possible reissue of Cool Livin,' and this was given in reply via an intermediary:

"No plans for re-release of "Cool Livin'" in its entirety at this time. However, we are about to release "Ylvisaker: The Early Years", which will draw a few songs from each of John's early LPs. He also wants to record 25 albums, and is ahead of schedule."

Twenty-Five albums? Must be something lost in the translation. I think it means he will have had 25 albums altogether when he's through? Either way: You go, John.

Remembering Ronald Reagan (Not So Fondly)

2011-07-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Note: I began the following essay a few moths back when the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birthday was an actual news item. Since then I sort of lost interest, but decided to go ahead and finish it up and post the necessary links for those of you who care to do any kind of background research on this topic. I do this for Christian friends of mine who are blinded by something I have come to label Reagonolatry. Or "Reagan-Idolatry." This mawkish tendency among some, to put on rose-colored glasses about something they wish to view favorably: in this case, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

One has to wonder: What are the reasons for this? Are there things people don't want to let go of? Materialism and Greed? A bad attitude towards the poor and people of other ethnic backgrounds? We have FOX News and websites such as World Net Daily and Christian Post that make a living out of padding the White Conservative Christian Evangelical with enough of a buffer on their conscience that they won't reconsider many of their cherished views.
If they ever did, their would be noticeable changes in voting habits and powers that be would start to lose their grip.

Never losing sleep over it's insatiable need to publish inane fluff pieces, the Washington Post earlier this month listed it's Five myths about Ronald Reagan's legacy. Of course, nobody cares about whether he was a bad actor or not, and especially his detractors believe his Presidency was a Great Acting job, even if not a great... Presidency. But since the Post squandered an opportunity to really rip off the Gipper's mask, I suppose it falls upon the author of this blog you are reading to tell the real truth. OK not that I'm the only one, but I do get to pass the truth along.

I'll never forget the plight of my hometown of Klamath Falls, OR- an area that regularly votes upwards of 60% Republican most of the time- falling into economic depression in the 80's as stores in the inner urban area closed down and job became scarce. For some reason, Rural Communities tend towards Ultra-Right Wing ideology, and despite hard times and countless other disasters of Republicanism over the years, they still pretty much vote the same way.

I took courses at Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls in the Spring of 1984 and again in the Winter and Spring of 1992. In 1984 you hardly dared disagree that Reagan was a great President, doing the right things for the economy and security. By the early 90's however, with Bush Sr.'s 1st term in mid-swing, students had a different mental state. Many were scared the jobs they were studying for might not even be there.

I think they had good reason to think so. We had by then, 10 years of a Republican in the White House,after all.

But I digress. Let's get into the specifics about Reagan shall we? Grab your tin-foil hats and come along. Let's take a journey though some websites that take not such a great view of the Gipper.

The Mythos of the "Reaganomics Recovery"

Libertarians are becoming less and less my favorite kind of people, but here's a critique of Reaganomics from a Libertarian Free-Market view anyway. Good grief, I just started reading it and he's lying his ass off already- saying Carter had a huge Budget Deficit that Reagan needed to bring down. Do I leave this link up? OK I will,but only in the interest of presenting another view. As far as what really happened to the economy, I watched the News back then. Reagan pushed the deficit up not down, and everyone I knew admitted it (although Ray-gun's defenders acted as if was a good thing!) For a crash course in what Reagan actually did do to the economy vs how Carter left things when he stepped down from office, go here. To just see how the deficit was on it's way down under Carter, before Reagan got in, go here. To see just how much good President Jimmy Carter was doing for the country before Reagan's gang of Robber Barons got in office, go here. To find out how Reagan and his cohorts conspired to lie about the state of the US Debt and scare-stampede people into submission, go here.

For more sobering analysis of Reaganomics, view the following:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-carterreagan.htm
http://hubpages.com/hub/Reaganomics-and-its-effect-on-the-economy
http://distributism.blogspot.com/2007/07/myth-of-reaganomics.html
http://geotheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/busting-reaganomics-myth.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics#Keynesian_interpretation

This video makes the claim at the beginning that Deregulation actually began under Carter. I certainly can attest to that, knowing that things like the FFC rules governing the operation of Radio Stations started under Reagan's predecessor.

Did Reagan really lower taxes? All depends on how you look at it:

CNN's Money blog has an interesting breakdown of Reagan's conduct with first lowering, then raising taxes here. For a detailed, thorough analysis of how Republican Presidents run up deficits they tend to saddle Democratic Presidents with, check here. For proof that unemployment doubled under the 1st 4 years of Reagan's term in office, go here. For Paul Krugman's answer to the Conservatives attempt to re-write history to gloss over Reagan's glaring errors, go here.

In 30 years, the US went from being the Worlds largest Creditor nation, to being the largest Debtor Nation. How did Reagan play a part in this? Check this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=relS1KXv6s8

So Just How Did We End Up With This Bozo In Office Anyway?
Quite simply put: Reagan and his cohorts conspired to keep the Hostages taken in Iran under Carter's watch from being brought home by then President Jimmy Carter. I believe this was true back then, and I believe it now. As Consortiumnews.com tells us:

According to handwritten notes of Reagan’s foreign policy adviser Richard Allen, Bush called on Oct. 27, 1980, after getting an unsettling message from former Texas Gov. John Connally, the ex-Democrat who had switched to the Republican Party during the Nixon administration. Connally said his oil contacts in the Middle East were buzzing with rumors that Carter had achieved the long-elusive breakthrough on the hostages.

In a still “secret” 1992 deposition to the House October Surprise Task Force, Allen explained the cryptic notes as meaning Connally had heard that Carter had ransomed the hostages’ freedom with an Israeli shipment of military spare parts to Iran. Allen said Bush instructed him, Allen, to get details from Connally. Allen was then to pass on any new details to two of Bush’s aides.

Though various foreign leaders and intelligence operatives have alleged that by mid-October 1980, the Reagan-Bush campaign had struck its own hostage deal with the Iranian government, there apparently continued to be nervousness among the Republicans that whatever arrangements they had with Iran might come unglued.

Adding to this, the blog known as The Ronald Reagan Years tells us the following details:

In 1980, during Ronald Reagan's presidential run, William Casey was Reagan's campaign manager. Casey's background was in foreign intelligence. In World War II, Casey was the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in London (1943-45). After the war, he directed U.S. intelligence in Europe and had a love for covert operations. Reagan's vice presidential nominee George Bush also had an intelligence background--he was director of the CIA from 1976 to 1977.

Strong evidence suggests that both Bush and Casey made a secret deal with Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian government to delay the release of American hostages until after the 1980 presidential election. Going into the election, the U.S. government had been deadlocked with Iran for almost a year over the fate of American citizens held by that country. The impasse had become an albatross around President Carter's neck and CIA-men, Bush and Casey were determined that the hostage issue would not be resolved while Carter was in office. To this end, Bush and Casey allegedly made a secret arrangement with the Iranians to delay the hostages' release and help ensure Carter's election defeat.

I wont bother re-hasing the details about Reagan having pandered to the KKK and the Racist South in the 1980 campaign. You can read a good breakdown of that here. I've already documented the whole sordid history of the Republicans and their record on Race & Gender in a previous blog post.

For a trip down memory lane, read about the Iran Contra scandal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair In light of all of that, watch this video on how Reagan was involved in funding Osama Bin Laden:

A Day In The Life Of A Teabagger

2011-07-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't write this, but it's been passed around on the Internet a lot. Far be it from me to hold too tightly onto a good thing. Enough of that is done already with health care.

The Teabagger gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised. All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now The Teabagger gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. The Teabagger's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. The Teabagger takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

The Teabagger dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree- hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

The Teabagger begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards The Teabagger's employer pays these standards because The Teabagger's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If The Teabagger is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noon time, The Teabagger needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. The Teabagger's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect The Teabagger's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. The Teabagger has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage because some stupid liberal decided that The Teabagger and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

The Teabagger is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dad's; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republicans would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so The Teabagger wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good (He doesn't tell The Teabagger that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit The Teabagger enjoys throughout his day). The Teabagger agrees, "We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives.

Why I Don't Listen To Political Conservatives: A Five Minute Primer.

2011-06-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Conservatives are known for making very broad claims. One of the oft-repeated ones concerns public school vs. private education. it goes something like this: "Studies show students in Private Schools consistently outperform those in Urban Public Schools. Therefore, privately owned and operated schools are better than ones funded by taxpayer dollars and ran by the Government.

Permit me for the moment to accept this as truth for the sake of argument. I'd like to offer the following explanation to all of this:

1. At some point, there was a massive movement of so-called "White Flight" out of the Inner City, as people fled it for the suburban areas for whatever reasons they deemed necessary.

2. This resulted in the tax burden in the Urban areas shifting to an on average less-wealthy group of people, who mostly couldn't afford to move out or didn't feel pressed to do so.

3. Post-Reagan era Cutbacks on our schools and libraries and other publicly funded institutions of higher learning put the squeeze on what was left of the available revenue, causing a further decline in quality.

So what conclusion should any reasonable, intelligent person make out of all of this?

Points #1 & 3 above are problems caused by Conservatives!

So get rid of Conservative solutions, and our problems will heal themselves! ;-)

Full disclosure: I actually went to a couple of Church-run schools when I was a teenager, for a year-and-a-half total. I have great memories therein. About how one of the coaching and faculty staff members was fired halfway through the year for having an affair with a student. About how the School Principle, who doubled as our Sophomore-level Bible Class teacher, threatened me once with physical harm. About how one instructor was known to say "Liberalism = Communism. About individuality-stifling school uniforms and dress codes and Anti-Rock Music attitudes. About being asked to read the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, who for some reason is the Right's longstanding ideal of what an "African-American Hero" should look like. Suffice it to say, I missed nothing when I went back to graduate from public schools.

One of those schools was Greenleaf Friends Academy in Idaho, which I went to by virtue of the fact that I had attended an Evangelical Friends Church (Quaker). Their Summer Youth Camp is where I got saved, in fact! On one time coming back home to visit family during breaks, I asked one of the kids in my youth group "Why didn't you go to Greenleaf? He responded "Greenleaf? Greenleaf is rinky-dink!" Basically there's no way he could get the high-performing science programs was at the high-school that he and I both graduated from, in different years.

Far be it from moi to accept simplistic solutions and explanations of things. That would be kinda... Conservative! ;-) I'd be remiss if I didn't leave the reader with a few links to read and decide on for themselves:

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/3/31/13544/0640

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/voucher_report/v_seed184.shtml

http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Public-Schools-Four-Volumes/dp/027598298X

While I am by no means of the delusion that our present model of public schools doesn't need some serious re-thinking, I also am mindful of the way such things are sometimes used as political footballs. I like to lead with my head on straight, personally.

Virtue Is Sometimes Not Rewarded

2011-06-17T01:25:00.001-07:00

Click on the image, cntrl and + to enlarge.

Now if it's not already obvious to someone, I'll spell it out to you: If a person is drunk, what they commit is not about power. Their judgement is impaired. The ones raping little old ladies are certainly not the same people, and chances are that a guy commits violence under the influence would never think of harming... anyone when sober.

They are outraged at suggestions like this, but they don't mind demonizing men as aggressors and predators like they have for... oh... 30 years or more now?

The Movement to Disbar Mary N. Kellett

2011-03-30T04:32:00.000-07:00

You can help the movement to put a Man-hating Attorney out of business for good. Visit http://www.fillerfund.com/Support.htm

Gross prosecutorial misconduct and civil rights abuse of men and fathers is taking place in the Bar Harbor region of Maine by Assistant DA Mary Kellett.

Some have called it a modern day Witch Hunt where men are targeted and persecuted with little or no credible evidence of a crime.

This video details one case involving a father who tried to leave his wife of 16 years and gain custody of his children. What happened next is reminiscent of the 1600's Salem Witch Trials.

In 1690's New England was gripped by the Witch Hunt Hysteria which destroyed the lives of countless innocent people and their families solely by the false testimony of their accusers and the misconduct of their prosecutors.

Today, over 300 years later, a new insidious Rape Hysteria grips a small community in Maine's Bar Harbor region, and again, countless lives are being ruined solely by false testimony of their accusers and the misconduct of their prosecutors.

Numerous men have been arrested and jailed in Ellsworth Maine, often solely because of someone's accusations. Some of the accused men spend many months in jail until they are finally tried on the flimsiest or even fabricated evidence. Virtually every man who is accused gets arrested, charged, and has his life publicly ruined.

The accusers are sometimes young, mentally or emotionally impaired, girlfriends, occasional sex partners, and even wives in bitter custody battles with their husbands.

In a small county of only 50,000 people, as many as 4 men per month have been indicted on multiple counts of Rape, each carrying up to 30 years in prison.

The driving force of this Rape Hysteria is Assistant District Attorney Mary N. Kellett of Brooklin, Maine.

Vladek Filler is a decent, loving, and dedicated father, brother, and son, who decided to leave his 16 year relationship with his wife Ligia Filler (aka Ligia Barrientos), and save their children from her mentally unstable and abusive behavior. Up to the time Mr. Filler decided to leave, his wife repeatedly praised him for being "the most loving and caring man and father that she has ever seen in her entire life," and that he was "the only man for her".

Vladek Filler tried to leave this relationship in an honorable and civilized manner, but his wife considered it betrayal, and accused him of abandoning her like all others did. Hysterically she declared that the loss of this relationship meant that she "lost in her life".

Almost instantly, as she did with all her other relationships, she considered Mr. Filler as her enemy, and made outrageous and filthy allegations against him in an effort to seize custody of their children and punish him for trying to leave her. To achieve this, her allegations had to be outrageous since Mr. Filler was a loving husband of many years whose children loved him and wished to be with him.

Outrageous accusations are all it took to instantly sweep Mr. Filler in to the Rape Hysteria of Ellsworth Maine.

Labeled as having "mental issues" by the Gouldsboro Police, and "certifiable" by a Washington County Deputy Sheriff, Ms. Ligia Filler failed in gaining swift custody of their oldest son by alleging abuse. On April 24, 2007, she was apprehended and restrained after running on the streets partially undressed with a toddler while screaming that she wished to kill her husband and cut him in to pieces for molesting and abusing their children. She alleged that her husband would murder their 12 year old son. All of these allegations were investigated by DHHS and proven to be lies. But allegations that her husband sexually assaulted her escalated to multiple charges against this innocent man.

For more information visit:

The False Rape Society: Prosecutor's Conduct in Vladek Filler Case Both Heinous and Unpardonable

http://www.fillerfund.com

The Spearhead: The Movement to Disbar Mary N. Kellett

RADAR

Fathers 4 Justice Global

Presidential Candidate ''Average Joe'' Schriner: The last shall come first?

2011-03-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

Average Joe Schriner for U.S. President Campaign

Joseph Charles Schriner (b. March 3, 1955) (aka “average Joe” Schriner) is an Independent candidate for President of the United States. Once a proud resident of Bluffton, Ohio, Schriner ran in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 U.S. Presidential elections and has already begun campaigning for the 2012 race.

Schriner graduated from Bay Village High School in 1973. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Bowling Green State University in 1978.

After several years as a journalist and drug counselor, he traveled around the United States looking for people who had developed creative, common-sense programs to help their communities. After 8 years on the road he developed his idea to run for the presidency.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is married and has three children.

From the Consistent Life.org email newsletter 03/11/2011:

Joe Schriner is an independent U.S. presidential candidate for 2012 whose platform revolves around a Consistent Life Ethic – opposed to abortion, euthanasia, poverty, pollution, nuclear proliferation – "anything that can end life prematurely," he says. Schriner has campaigned in four successive election cycles, traveling with his family. A former journalist, he’s looked for people who have developed models to stand up for life in all its dimensions, then takes the information about from town to town. "If people pick up on these, we can get policies enacted long before we ever get to D.C." During his tours, he looks for Consistent Life Ethic contacts and their stories. He can be reached at JoeSchriner@hotmail.com

Joe Schriner's Platform

Pro Life · Pro Peace · Pro Health Care · Pro Environment

"Average Joe" Schriner

Presidential Election Committee
2100 W. 38th St.
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
419-792-9059
JoeSchriner@hotmail.com

http://www.voteforjoe.com

The Order of the White Feather

2011-03-08T02:27:00.000-08:00

The False Rape Society: Flashback: The Women's Group Organized to Shame Young Men Into Being Cannon Fodder

Mindless nonsense and propaganda knoweth no cultural bounds when it comes to trying to get youth of support the conflicts of Governments that can't get along with each other.

Thanks to the False Rape Society blog for calling attention to this dark chapter of history. Here's one of the links they referenced, and some content:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWfeather.htm

James Lovegrove was only sixteen when he joined the army on the outbreak of the First World War.

On my way to work one morning a group of women surrounded me. They started shouting and yelling at me, calling me all sorts of names for not being a soldier! Do you know what they did? They struck a white feather in my coat, meaning I was a coward. Oh, I did feel dreadful, so ashamed.

I went to the recruiting office. The sergeant there couldn't stop laughing at me, saying things like "Looking for your father, sonny?", and "Come back next year when the war's over!" Well, I must have looked so crestfallen that he said "Let's check your measurements again". You see, I was five foot six inches and only about eight and a half stone. This time he made me out to be about six feet tall and twelve stone, at least, that is what he wrote down. All lies of course - but I was in!"

(6) Francis Beckett, The Guardian (17th May 2008)

The war's extraordinary vividness is because it left a whole generation deeply and irreparably damaged, and that generation is close enough for many of us to have known members of it - and because millions of people can still do what I have just done. After reading, in quick succession, these four books about the men who fought the war (not a course of action I recommend as the preliminary to a carefree weekend), I took out a box of flimsy, yellowing letters, and tried yet again to imagine what my grandfather went through.

He had three small daughters, which saved him from conscription, and his attempt to volunteer was turned down in 1914 because he was short-sighted. But in 1916, as he walked home to south London from his office, a woman gave him a white feather (an emblem of cowardice). He enlisted the next day. By that time, they cared nothing for short sight. They just wanted a body to stop a shell, which Rifleman James Cutmore duly did in February 1918, dying of his wounds on March 28.

It was Emmeline Pankhurst’s call for universal compulsory national service for both sexes that especially served the conservative line. Female service would be played out on the floor of the factory. This new work force would be in direct opposition to the concerns of the “socialist” trade unions:

In 1915, at the request of Lloyd George . . . the tiny but dynamic nucleus of the WSPU organized a mammoth Women’s Right to Serve demonstration in London to help overcome the still lively resistance of trade union leaders to the mass introduction of female labour. (Mitchell 51)

The conservative British establishment utilized Emmeline Pankhurst’s influence in their effort to curb “socialist” movement. Emmeline Pankhurst utilized a conservative stance to place her underlying concerns for suffrage and women’s rights in a better light and in a better position politically. She ultimately cozied up to the power structure of British society, many of whom she had previously considered the enemies of women, to advance the feminist agenda.

Rob Bell On Trial: The Hell-Acious Response Of Conservative Christianity

2011-03-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

I saw a couple of Rob Bell's short videos about 5 years ago when I stayed in Chicago for a brief spell. I remembered something about him being filmed in a small cafe' setting, talking to the camera (as if you were the person he was having coffee with.) They seemed to me like solid, compassionate efforts at communicating God's truth to those who are struggling to understand why bad things happen in this life.

Bell's forthcoming book "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived" has sparked a brouhaha before it has even hit the shelves. Mostly it's centered around not the book itself, but the "Trailer" for it, shown above. No surprise that Justin Taylor, (who's also in the publishing business as vice president of editorial at Crossway Books) has along with John Piper and a few others, already condemned Bell as a universalist. I've come to expect this kind of knee-jerk outrage from the more Conservative theological camp & Calvinist Good 'Ol Boy Network.

Jason Boyett in his Beliefnet blog articulates the scope and complexion of the debate:

From the publisher's copy about the book:

In Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith--the afterlife--arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic--eternal life doesn't start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

Sound controversial? It is. It's supposed to be. And we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but on Saturday influential blogger Justin Taylor (who's also in the publishing business as vice president of editorial at Crossway) decided to judge the book based on its cover description. Citing that and a short video provided by the publisher, Taylor outed Bell as a universalist. While he admitted that he hadn't read the book yet (!), he felt OK making this statement about Bell:

It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.

And this one, too, in an explanatory follow-up statement:

If Bell is teaching that hell is empty and that you can reject Jesus and still be saved, he is opposing the gospel and the biblical teaching of Jesus Christ. You may think that's judgmental to say that; I think it's being faithful. I would encourage a careful study of 1 Timothy to see what Paul says about false teaching and teachers.

As of this morning, Taylor's post has more than 20,000 Facebook recommendations and 1,000 comments. But that's not all. Highly respected author and pastor John Piper read Taylor's post and recommended it to his Twitter followers with a link and this simple line:

Farewell, Rob Bell.

Piper's tweet got retweeted and passed along and pretty soon, #robbell was in Saturday's top 10 trending topics, which is usually reserved for Middle East unrest, dead celebrities, and Justin Bieber.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/omeoflittlefaith/2011/02/thoughts-rob-bell.html#ixzz1FNyYUZAF

Denny Burk begins his strawman attack on Bell by quoting from the above trailer and responding (of course, Bell isn't there to answer if Burk is or isn't correct in his presuppositions, but never mind that.) Here's Burks "phony debate" in part:

Bell: Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?

Answer: The Bible teaches that there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). The Bible also teaches any person who does not believe in Jesus falls under the judgment of God (John 3:18). Anyone (including Gandhi) who refuses to trust Christ alone for salvation will die in their sin and will not be able to follow Jesus into eternal life (John 8:21).

Hello??? I happen to know Christians who would say the same thing as Bell, and they believe in eternal punishment. They would agree with him about Gandhi, because Jesus said not to judge.

Nothing in that Bible passage can tell us exactly where Gandhi is with God. (Duh, because it was written some 2000 years prior to Gandhi's life on Earth!) We know E Stanley Jones, the great 20th century Methodist Theologian, witnessed the Gospel to him. At one point Jones wrote to him and expressed that although he previously though Gandhi had "gotten it," (saving faith in Christ) he had to admit he had not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Stanley_Jones

But that's IT! That's ALL we know! Anything to the converse is pure speculation because we don't know the guy and have no idea if he ever later reconsidered his views!

Can God communicate with us telepathically? Can he so so in a speed faster than light? DUH, what do you think? Perhaps something like this happened:

*Sound of Gun Shot*

Gandhi: "Oh no... no..." (according to the movie anyway!)

Holy Spirit: "Hi Gandhi this is God. You have just been fatally shot and unfortunately, this is it for you. Your mind will soon be going blank and your body will be entering the process of rigor mortis after that. Before your soul completely vacates your body, I just have one question for you. I see my servant E. Stanley Jones took the time out to explain The Gospel to you. What do you think. Do you believe my Son Jesus died for your sins, or no?

Speculation? Of course! And so is dogmatically stating that Gandhi is in hell.

Come to think of it, wasn't there someone in history, in the Bible as a matter of fact, who was saved by God without a Bible, Evangelists, or any adherence to 5-Point theology? Why yes, his name was Abraham!

I don't know if Rob Bell is a Universalist. I do know he's a breath of fresh air compared to the trend that permeates much of modern Christianity where some just read books by Piper, Horton, Sproul, et. al. rather than a broader cross-section of authors. But what disturbs me more than anyone's conclusions is the insinuation that the questions are ipso facto wrong to have. I once heard Charlie Peacock say that God is not afraid of our questions, but He is more than capable of shutting you up.

Someone who knows the Pastors who are criticizing Bell has shared with me that they have previewed chapters of his book in advance, and at his request. However, one Blogger has read the entire book, and disagrees with the conclusions being drawn by others. Here's also a good collection of thoughts on the topic.

But getting back to the controversy, I have to say that I've seen this movie before. The Reformed Good 'Ol Boy network gets to unilaterally decide for everyone else what is or isn't orthodoxy. And then they congratulate each other for a job well done not listening. I remember when decades ago, Tony Campolo had a heresy trial (that he asked for,) and J.I. Packer was one of the judges. I'll believe something is wrong with Bell when I hear people from other Theological Stripes weigh in on it.

John R.W. Stott whom many Evangelical Conservatives quote as an authority, isn't Orthodox on this issue, either. And yet I don't recall very that many people got their undies all in a twist over it! Hypocrisy? I'll let the reader decide for his or her self.

And why should they? I sometimes wonder if the Evangelical Covenant denomination might be right after all. They require no one to believe in anything that is not in and of itself Salvific. I'm sure many will staunchly disagree. But I think the unity of people in Christ as a reflection of Christ is more important than propositions *about* Christ.

I take NT Wright's definition of the Gospel to heart here and I am comfortable limiting it as such the same way he does:

When Paul talks about “the gospel,” he means “the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and therefore the Lord of the world.” Now, that’s about as brief as you can do it. It’s very clear in Romans. Romans 1:3-4: This is the gospel. It’s the message about Jesus Christ descended from David, designated Son of God in power, and then Romans 1:16-17 which says very clearly: “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. That is, Salvation is the result of the gospel, not the center of the gospel itself.”

The Gospel is: the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and therefore the Lord of the world. Why not limit our boundaries of fellowship to that? Then all of the folks at differing levels of Orthodoxy don't have to be ostracized! Or are we too in love with Ostracization to be persuaded otherwise?

The only Ecumenical Council that was ever convened that had any Biblical Authority behind it was in Acts 15. In that scenario, thorny issues were hashed out, a decision was made that all were in agreement with. No one was kicked out.

I think we should start affirming whether these things are done Well in God's sight not so much by their words, but by their outcome.

And are we bold enough to imagine a Christianity free of differing over anything that will not intrinsically bring salvation? Perhaps we misunderstand the way Jesus intended to lead his flock, and how that's devalued into orgainizationalism & sectarianism.

Trevin Wax is another Bell Basher, but this time I'm not going to quote his blog, but the comments section. A respondent named Mason offers the most clear-headed thinking I've heard so far:

I guess my “issue” with heaven and hell is the idea of eternal punishment (of course I understand that God really does not care if I have an issue with it or not, nor does my issues make it any less Biblical).

In the OT God is quite clear that the punishment should fit the crime. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth type stuff. You sacrifice children to Moloch and I wipe you out. God’s judgment is proportionate to the crime. But God is not seen as giving out more punishment than is necessary or deserving. God is just. having said that where is the justice of taking a sincere religious person who gives to charity, supports efforts for justice and mercy to widows and orphans and basically “behaves” maybe even better than most Christians and when that person dies God places that person in eternal torment forever and ever just because that person did not accept Jesus as Lord??

As I read the scriptures Jesus is clear that there are degrees of punishment…remember when Jesus says that it will be more tolerable for Sodom in the Day of Judgment than for other cities b/c the other cities rejected the Gospel. It appears that judgment is given out based on the sole judgment of God.

Also, when you do a study of “hell” in the OT and NT people are often surprised how little the word Hell is actually used. Sheol is not hell neither is Gehenna. Sheol is the holding place of the dead similar to Hades. Gehenna is a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where children were sacrificed to Molech during the OT. some could argue and i do not want to write Bell’s book for him, but that Jesus’ words concerning Gehenna are similar to Jeremiah’s warning to Jerusalem that if they did not repent then they would be subject to Gehenna..meaning they would be judged and destroyed in the fires of Gehenna, the city of Jerusalem would be leveled to the ground and bodies thrown into Gehenna, not eternal torment but consumed in judgment meaning perhaps and leaving open the possibility of nihilism, that they would suffer for a short time and then cease to exist.

Therefore Jesus’ discussion on Gehenna could be the same as Jeremiah (7.3). Jesus could be simply saying that if you refuse to be part of the Kingdom of God (which includes recognizing me as the one true Messiah and aligning your life in accordance with my kingdom) you too will be judged just as in Jeremiah’s day and be subject to the fires of Gehenna. Sure enough that is exactly what happened 40 yrs later when Titus marched on Jerusalem and leveled it and piled up all of the bodies in Gehenna.

Notice also in Revelation, hell is not mentioned. Death and Hades are mentioned, but those “places” are not hell. The only place that could be understood in the traditional since as hell is the lake of fire. But those thrown into the lake of fire are not said to burn forever. One could argue that they are consumed. Meaning they no longer exist. Some have argued that there is such a thing as “conditional immortality.” Meaning that humanity was created with the possibility of being immortal but they were not created inherently to be immortal.

There is only one immortal person and that is Jesus (1 Timothy 6.16). We are immortal as long as we are in the immortal one (Jesus). Without Jesus we are not immortal and we die. We cease to exist. Just a few thoughts…I think that we need to read Bell’s book before we jump to conclusions. All I am saying is that our traditional few of hell if correct should not fear challenges from those either inside of outside the church. If it is true it will stand the test of time. I would ask though that we make sure that our beliefs are shaped by the Bible and not by medieval literature (Divine Comedy).

Someone responds to Mason further down in the comments section with Eph 2:5, but I'm not sure if I can buy that persons' exegesis of it.

But I do like "Mason's" comment, and for this reason: He (?) goes right to the Raw Data of Scripture and wrestles with whats there!

Could he be wrong? Of course! But I think he's on the right track. The old "fret over that guy who could be going over the edge of what we consider Normal Christianity into heresy" tactic just doesn't cut it anymore. We should also ask: How faithful to Jesus has so-called "Normal Christianity" been?

In our 2000 year history: Crusades. Inquisition. Racism. Persecution. Misguided political agendas. Slavery to Salvation by Works instead of by Grace. Are these the hallmark of what Jesus had in mind?

It's not an unfair question to ask if we as a whole took a wrong turn somewhere, not at all.

And if your counter-argument boils down to a simplistic "because I said so" then you don't get it.

Because sometimes the "Traditional" view may be proven wrong. And if so, we'd better be prepared to abandon it!

And I might add: No one has shown me anything in Bell's video or the pre-publicity that couldn't go either way.

As an example, this from the Amazon.com Product Description:

Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

"Arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering" is one of the buzz-phrases used in Pre-publicity for Bell's book that's being kicked around by Burk & others. And yet as I previously pointed out, many Christians use the apologetic that God sentences no one, only People sentence themselves to hell!

It could also turn out to be the result of premeditated "pre-publicity." An ad campaign has been brought forth to get people in on the Buzz. Everyone's beating the drum on this thing at the behest of HarperCollins (and possibly Bell himself) - who may have concocted this as a mere charade. But asking questions is not a bad thing, either.

But we won't know for sure... and none of us really do... until the Book itself has hit the streets.

The Christian Right's Misapropriation of James Madison

2011-02-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

The website known as Classical Liberals
provides a synopsis of a brouhaha that happened a few years ago between a David Barton who heads up a group called Wall Builders and an Atheist who was challenging the Constitutionality of Congressional Chaplains. As Classical Liberal quotes Madison:

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation?

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain! To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers or that the major sects have a tight to govern the minor.

I gotta ask: What is it about us Christians when we see the word "Atheist" connected to denial of someone's being canonized as a Christian, we get our undies in a wad, as if God needs us to go to anyone's defense?

Couldn't it be possible that this person is right on that issue?

And what makes us get so defensive of these things as if our Faith depends on it?

Idolatry?

More & more I like the idea of Christians seeing our citizenship as in heaven. Or at least Primarily so!

More information:

http://classicliberal.tripod.com/madison/ (Contains links to several of Madison's writings.)

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/jamesmadison.html

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html#madison

http://www.jameswatkins.com/foundingfathers.htm

Sweat Shops are SO wonderful: Why would anyone object?

2011-02-26T03:49:00.000-08:00

Someone of the Libertarian persuasion made a comment I noted on the Critiques of Libertarianism blog that Sweat Shops were a great boon to humankind. Well, I won't repeat the exact sorry-assed comment in it's exact sense, but you may click on the previous link and view yourself if you so desire.

I got a problem with assholes who recommend others work in environments they themselves wouldn't want to be in. Call me crazy, but that seems like a Double Standard.

By the way, the Critiques of Libertarianism Website and the Critiques of Libertarianism Blog are both decent resources for understanding and debunking the Libertarian mindset. Mike Huben has been running it and vexing the Sons & Daughters of Austria for over a decade and a half! And if Libertarians piss you off, it's also a good place to have your frustrations vented. ;-)

Meantime, here's a brief compendium of websites about Sweat Shops I've put together:

Inside China's sweatshops

Visiting a local factory, we were ushered into the director's office and served drinks. Then the man with goofy teeth opposite me began explaining something in impenetrable English. When I failed to understand, he flapped his arms impatiently, knocking over his water. The glass shattered on the tiled floor. Any minute now things might turn nasty. It had taken ages to find this toy factory. There was no sign over the entrance. It's a dirty pink building in Songang, an industrial suburb of China's miracle boomtown Shenzhen.

We had come to follow up a story about a young woman called Li Chun Mei. Apparently the 19-year-old had collapsed and died last November at the end of a 16-hour shift. Like many of the staff, she often had to work past midnight, especially in the run-up to Christmas. The girls who shared her dormitory found her lying on the bathroom floor with blood pouring from her nose and mouth.

Millions of Chinese people have left the countryside for the cities

The bosses, who were Korean, did not deny that Li had died on their premises. They blamed the death not on overwork but on earlier injuries Li suffered when she was hit by a motorcycle. In any case, at the end of last year she was working for a subcontractor. That, they told us, absolved them of any responsibility. They produced a document - the contract of Li's employer - signed with inky red thumbprints.

They even gave us a phone number for the supervisor, one Mrs Wu, but when we tried it later, the line had been disconnected.

Under Chinese law, employees cannot be forced to work more than eight hours a

day and overtime must not exceed 40 hours a month. There's a local minimum monthly wage too of $66. But every single worker we spoke to from many different factories around Shenzhen had at some point either been overworked or underpaid. Usually both.

Feminists Against Sweatshops

The U.S. General Accounting Office defines a sweatshop as an employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, worker’s compensation or industry regulation. Sweatshops exist both internationally and domestically and the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that over 50% of sewing shops in the US are sweatshops as defined by the above definition. Buying “Made in the USA” clothing often does not mean “sweatshop free”.

Workers in sweatshops are usually young women and immigrant workers that are desperately poor and work long, long hours, sometimes up to 20 hours a day and their wages still do not total a workable wage to feed and clothe their families. The workers are often denied bathroom breaks and forced to undergo pregnancy tests and take birth control so the companies do not have to pay maternity leave costs. The workers often suffer verbal and physical abuse and struggle to complete high quotas each day.

Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops; For more than a decade, major American retailers and name brands have answered accusations that they exploit "sweatshop" labor with elaborate codes of conduct and on-site monitoring. But in China many factories have just gotten better at concealing abuses. Internal industry documents reviewed by BusinessWeek reveal that numerous Chinese factories keep double sets of books to fool auditors and distribute scripts for employees to recite if they are questioned. And a new breed of Chinese consultant has sprung up to assist companies like Beifa in evading audits. "Tutoring and helping factories deal with audits has become an industry in China," says Tang, 34, who recently left Beifa of his own volition to start a Web site for workers.

A lawyer for Beifa, Zhou Jie, confirms that the company employed the Shanghai consulting firm but denies any dishonesty related to wages, hours, or outside monitoring. Past audits had "disclosed some problems, and we took necessary measures correspondingly," he explains in a letter responding to questions. The lawyer adds that Beifa has "become the target of accusations" by former employees "whose unreasonable demands have not been satisfied." Reached by cell phone, a man identifying himself as Lai says that the Shanghai consulting firm helps suppliers pass audits, but he declines to comment on his work for Beifa.

Inside a Chinese Sweatshop:"A Life of Fines and Beating"
Liu's Dickensian tale stands in stark contrast to the reassurances that Wal-Mart, Payless, and other U.S. companies give American consumers that their goods aren't produced under sweatshop conditions. Since 1992, Wal-Mart has required its suppliers to sign a code of basic labor standards. After exposes in the mid-1990s of abuses in factories making Kathie Lee products, which the chain carries, Wal-Mart and Kathie Lee both began hiring outside auditing firms to inspect supplier factories to ensure their compliance with the code. Many other companies that produce or sell goods made in low-wage countries do similar self-policing, from Toys 'R' Us to Nike and Gap. While no company suggests that its auditing systems are perfect, most say they catch major abuses and either force suppliers to fix them or yank What happened at Chun Si suggests that these auditing systems can miss serious problems--and that self-policing allows companies to avoid painful public revelations about them.

Organizations in opposition to Sweat Shop abuses:

Sweat Free Communities

NMASS (National Mobilization Against Sweatshops)

Rebuttal to Pro-Sweatshop Arguments:

A Consensus Statement on Sweatshop Abuse and MIT’s Prospective Actions in Pursuit of International Labor Justice

Ralph Nader: Corporate Socialism Runs US Government

2011-02-25T11:47:00.000-08:00

God Has Big Surprises Planned for the Middle East

2011-02-24T00:39:00.000-08:00

God Has Big Surprises Planned for the Middle East By J. Lee Grady

This editorial from a recent edition of Charisma Magazine reflects my own personal worldview in a nutshell. My Generation was lied to by Pulpit-pounders who said the End was near and we would never see anything change in the Cold War US/USSR standoff until the Lord came back. Well he hasn't returned yet, and the Soviet Bloc fell without firing a shot. J. Lee Grady is one voice who thinks that the Middle East may be primed for such a transformation.

"Pentecostals in Palestine" - a powerful and eye-opening documentary

2011-02-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

"Pentecostals in Palestine" Documentary: "Pentecostals in Palestine - a powerful and eye-opening documentary"

I gave to the making of this documentary and I hope you will to. American Pentecostals & Evangelicals meet Palestinian Pentecostals & Evangelicals and learn about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Please visit http://www.pcpj.org to support the production of this documentary being made by Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice (a 501c3 organization).

How Religious Were the Founding Fathers?

2011-02-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

Historian Gordon Wood explains that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington were not "emotionally religious." He outlines the development of religion in the early United States, stating that as American society became more democratic, "the evangelicals took over."

The Tea-Bagger's Jesus?

2011-02-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

How The US Constitution Excluded The Poor, Women and African Slaves

2011-02-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Call With Bruce Cockburn - Become America on Vimeo.

From the CD: The Best Of The Call

Since many of my fellow Christians have been caught up in the "Back To the Constitution Movement" espoused by many Conservative Fringe groups, I thought a pause should be taken to consider what this all may mean. What type of people originally founded this Country? What were their intentions in doing so? Whom did they say was in and who was out?

In thinking about all of this, I decided to comb the internet for some information. What follows is a compendium of Blogs, Essays and other Websites I deem worthy of consideration. To begin with, let's look at the issue of Voting Rights in the United States, as it has continually evolved over the years, and in terms of how older exclusions were eventually dropped:

SOURCE: http://www.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/voting-rights

During colonial times, the right to vote (also known as being enfranchised) was severely limited. Mostly, adult white males who owned property were the only people with the right to vote. Women could not vote, though some progressive colonies allowed widows who owned property to vote. After the United States gained its independence from Great Britain, the Constitution gave the states the right to decide who could vote. Individually, the states began to abolish property requirements and, by 1830, adult white males could vote. Suffrage (the right to vote) has been gradually extended to include many people, and the U.S. Constitution has been amended several times for this purpose.

SOURCE: http://www.iefd.org/articles/constitution_for_the_few.php

In the period from the American Revolution to the Constitutional Convention (1776-1787), the big landowners, merchants, and bankers exercised a strong influence over politico-economic life, often dominating "the local newspapers which voiced the ideas and interests of commerce."¹ In twelve of the thirteen states (Pennsylvania excepted), only property-owning White males could vote, probably not more than 10 percent of the total adult population. Excluded were all indigenous First Nation people ("Indians"), persons of African descent, women, indentured servants, and White males lacking sufficient property. Property qualifications for holding office were so steep as to exclude even most of the White males who could vote. A member of the New Jersey legislature had to be worth at least 1,000 pounds. South Carolina state senators had to possess estates worth at least 7,000 pounds clear of debt (equivalent to more than a million dollars today). In Maryland, a candidate for governor had to own at least 5,000 pounds of property. In addition, the absence of a secret ballot and of a real choice among candidates and programs led to widespread apathy.

The preceding article further details the situation in the Colonies leading up to the Constitutional Convention, and is worth reading in order to understand the type of Class Warfare going on at the time, and the fact that many of the Founders felt threatened by a potential uprising from the restless increasingly indebted populace. As such, they moved to take away the auspices of Democracy from the people, centralize power, protect the Institution of Slavery, and shut the poor and the average citizen completely out of the process. All in the interest of the Merchant Class.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States

Milestones of national franchise extension

Abolition of property qualifications for white men, 1812-1860 — see: Jacksonian democracy
Citizenship in both the US and US States by birth or naturalization, 1868 — see: Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Non-white men, 1870 — see: Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Women, 1920 — see: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Native Americans, 1924 — see:^[4]
Residents of the District of Columbia for US Presidential Elections, 1961 — see: Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution
Poor, 1964 — see: Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting imposition of poll tax in Federal elections
Racial minorities in certain states, 1965 — see Voting Rights Act
Poor, 1966 — see: Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), prohibiting imposition of poll tax or property requirements in all US elections.
Adults between 18 and 21, 1971 — see: Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Washington, DC, for restoring local elections such as Mayor and Councilmen, after 100 year gap in Georgetown, and 190 gap in the wider city, ending Congresses policy of local election disenfranchisement started in 1801 in this former portion of Maryland, 1973, — see: DC Home rule
United States Military and Uniformed Services, Merchant Marine, other Citizens overseas, living on bases in the US, abroad, or aboard ship, 1986 — see: Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act^[5]

How could the Untied States have taken so long to include so many of it's citizens into the Electoral Process? Further noted in the same article:

At the time of ratification of the Constitution, most states used property qualifications to restrict the franchise; the exact amount varied by state, but by some estimates, over half of white men were barred from voting. ^[12] In some states, free men of color (though the property requirement in New York was eventually dropped for whites but not for blacks) also possessed the vote, a fact that was emphasized in Justice Curtis's dissent in Dred Scott v. Sandford:

And for a definition of Dred Scott v. Sanford? Check the relevant Wikipedia entry on that:

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants,^[2] whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.^[3] The court also held that the U.S. Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Furthermore, the Court ruled that slaves, as chattels or private property, could not be taken away from their owners without due process.

Conservative Websites that attempt to refute what I have just posted, tend to focus on various quotes made by Adams, Franklin et. al against the Slave trade while ignoring the bigger picture; They did nothing to bring an end to the practice by including everyone as a US Citizen from the Get-go, and nothing that prevented the Dred Scott decision from happening. Or countless other incidents of mis-applied legislation as well as Affirmative Action for Whites. More on that, later.

A very intelligent website edited by a Mr. Javier Fernandez and his High School History Students, has a lot to say to supplement our understanding of these issues, as well as many not as often considered ones, as they relate to US History:

"The American identity during this time was not defined by race, nationality, or religion, but mostly by the national ideology floating around during the time period. Although the other factors did contribute, none was an influential as the ideological state of mind going around throughout the nation throughout all nationalities, races, and religions. This ideology that brought the nation together, also helped truly define what it meant to be American during this time."

Furthermore, Javier's class summarizes who was excluded from the Definition of what it meant ot be an American:

A major impact of being excluded from citizenship was the fact that many people could not vote. At this time, the main voters were wealthy white landowners who were obviously male. Slaves couldn't really vote because they were slaves and they were also hindered by the 3/5 compromise which counted 3/5 of the slave population as one vote which in turn didn't have any real effect in elections. Due to immigrants not being considered as American, they were unable to vote, and because of general suspicion they were unable to get jobs as well. Native Americans were not considered "American" even though they inhabited America before the colonists. The result of this was the Native Americans being pushed around by the "real" Americans which can be supported by the trail of tears and treaties that required the Indians to exhange their land to the white men. The results of people not being considered "American" varied depending on which group one belonged to; however, the idea was the same. They would be limited in many aspects of life and looked down upon by those who were considered "American".

OK so it's High school writing and could use some improvement. It's also very concise and easy to understand for getting our minds wrapped around the issues we are trying to understand.

Ideology? Why didn't that stay the defining point of being an American instead of Race or Place of Birth?

One wonders why especially in a time such as ours, when a certain group of people want to overturn the results of the last Presidential election on the simple basis of a piece of paper and the zip code of the hospital you were born in. Perhaps it is time to suggest that all residency/natural citizenship requirements be abandoned for the dated, Xenophobic ideals they really are?

Here's another website that gives us more information that brings the picture into focus. A Sharon Martinas writes in her essay:

http://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/cws/sharon.html

How White Privilege has been Perpetuated in the U.S.

I believe that there are five major ways by which the system of white privilege has been perpetuated:

The political economy of internal colonialism which laid the basis for the U.S. capitalist system;
Three hundred years of affirmative action programs for white people, created by federal and state laws;
Political demands of most white progressive movements (I call this *The Strategy of the Slave Owners*);
Reproduction of white privilege in daily life: the treatment of white people because they are white, and the behavioral response of white people to this treatment;
The culture of white supremacy.

"Affirmative Action for White People?" What is that, exactly? Martinas gives the following examples:

1663: In Virginia, English female indentured servants are no longer allowed to work in the fields; they can only work in their master's house. African women still work in the fields.
1680 - 1705: Virginia "servant" codes specify that white servants can testify in court, get "freedom dues," a plot of land, and the right to marry someone else who comes from Europe. (Racial intermarriage is banned.)
1790: The Naturalization Act, the first act of the first U.S. Congress, guarantees that white immigrants can become citizens, which leads the way for them to become owners of land. "Non-white" immigrants are denied the right to be citizens. (This provision was not changed until 1952.)
1830: The Indian Removal Act, initiated by President Andrew Jackson, removes the Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw and Seminole Indians from the most fertile land in the South. White slave owners take over the land, use enslaved Africans to grow the cotton that creates the wealth for both Southern and Northern ruling and middle class whites. Cotton becomes the major export of the new nation.
1848: In the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, Mexico cedes half its national territory to the United States. Mexicans living north of the Rio Grande become U.S. citizens, but they no longer automatically own the land their families have tilled for centuries. Under U.S. law, the land goes to those with papers. Mexicans do not have papers. White lawyers "representing" Mexican land owners swindle millions of acres by taking land as their legal fees. Mexican-Americans become the first farm workers on lands their families once owned.
1862: During the height of the Civil War, U.S. soldiers are also waging war on indigenous nations in the West. Millions of acres of Native land are taken by blooodshed. This land is distributed to white people only. The Homestead Act makes 50 million acres available, at low cost, to white working class homesteaders. The Morrell Act creates land grant colleges to build a new white middle class. And 100 million acres of Indian land are given free to the railroads.
1880's - 1914: Millions of Southern and Eastern European immigrants come to the U.S. They can bring their families, marry, travel to find work and eventually get citizenship. But during the same period, Chinese immigrants, except for merchants, are excluded from immigrating. Chinese workers are not allowed to bring their wives, nor to marry non-Chinese Americans, so they cannot create families.
1887: The Dawes Land Allotment Act forbids communal land ownership by indigenous people, and encourages Indians to sell their lands to whites. As a result, millions of acres go to white squatters.
1947 on: Under the G.I. Bill, the federal government authorizes the largest affirmative action program for white people in the nation's history. Millions of returning veterans get preferential treatment in jobs, suburban home loans, and college education. But these federal programs do not challenge institutional racism in employment, housing or education, so almost all the benefits go to white men and their families.
1954ff: One of the most significant effects of Brown v. Board of Education is the firing of thousands of Black teachers and principals in southern Black schools, after these schools are integrated with white ones. School Boards say that white parents will not let their kids be taught by Black teachers. So the major beneficiaries of Brown v. Board of Education are the thousands of white (mostly female) teachers and white (mostly male) principals who got the jobs in these newly integrated schools.
1994: The passage of "Three Strikes You're Out" in California leads to imprisonment for thousands of Black and Brown men while providing a major source of well paid jobs for mostly white working class men -- as prison guards.
1996: The passage of Proposition 209 ends a brief interlude of 30 years of affirmative action for people of color. And California, which will be the first state in the nation to have a majority population of people of color, has led the way in returning to a 300 year tradition of affirmative action for white people.

Apparently the Racial Exclusion Practiced at the First Constitutional Convention carried far beyond the borders of the Institution of Slavery. In fact, Exclusion was obviously practiced at many Soicio-economic levels and in many ways. Despite the founders alleged good intentions of ending Slavery as an institution that Conservatives are quick to cherry-pick quotes to try and prove, the Structures of Institutionalized Racism in America were a long was off from being effectively challenged. Whatever their intentions may have been, by not conferring Citizenship on all humans born on American Soil or to American Parents, the American Founders squandered an opportunity to make America truly free for all of it's people. Think of the countless years of bloodshed, court cases, war, oppression and other general Social Injustices that could have been avoided.

So what can we gain from this short, but thoughtful walk through the history of the founding of the United States? Many will object to the unpatriotic picture that I have painted here, and there have been ideologically-driven books written to tried to refute these claims. But perhaps the best way to balance all of this out is to take the view of historians such as Gordon Wood, who have maintained that aspects of Democracy and Egalitarianism have effected and altered the complexion of American Society in terms of how it developed, and in spite of very Republican intentions by the US Founding Fathers.

Nevertheless, and over and against the objections of many Constitution Pimps that seem to populate the political landscape these days, a sober view would seem to at least consider these realities, and not ignore the obvious: 200+ years of history has seen the Civil War, the end of Slavery, the rise of electronic Mass-media and the Internet, two World Wars, the great Depression, Civil Rights movement, Women's suffrage, and a host of other things they couldn't have possibly foreseen.

To Try and lock up every single attempt at change, at doing social good works, at our simply being a people - inside a Prison that says 'You can't fart if it ain't in the Constitution' would be disingenuous at best. As of now, amending the Constitution is a lot more lengthy & tedious process than it was when 13 states were all that was participating.

Alan Keyes: You Just Can't Be Correct Enough For Him!

2011-02-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

Check out the following clip. You would think Alan Keyes would feel like he's on friendly ground, since he's being interviewed on FOX news. But he responds as if he's being grilled by Maddow or Olberman. See for yourself:

All the asshole had to do was calmly answer the questions he was asked. Instead, he just showed people why he's an unfit leader who can't keep his temper, and ferociously disagrees with everyone even the slightest degree of difference with him. This his how it's done, Alan: "No I did not say what you claim I did when you said I said _____________, but what I actually said was ___________, and here's my justification for that:___________" Notice he avoided answering the basic question of what Illinois law actually says, and keeps on with his ad hominem attacks toward his interviewer.

What a wasted opportunity to educate his viewing audience and build consensus, something that should always be first and foremost on the mind of any communicator!

How would you like to have this guy for your father? Well interestingly enough, about 6 years ago Keyes' daughter Maya "came out" and revealed to the world she is a Lesbian. The response of her parents?

(CBS) The 19-year-old daughter of Alan Keyes has a Valentine for the anti-gay rights conservative pundit and frequent Republican candidate. Maya Marcel-Keyes will be making her first public appearance as a gay activist at a Valentine Day's rally in front of the Maryland State House, says Dan Furmansky, the leader of Equality Maryland, a gay rights group. Last summer her father, a conservative pundit and frequent Republican candidate, caused a stir during the Republican convention by labeling Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter a sinner and calling homosexuality "selfish hedonism." "It was kind of strange that he said it like a hypothetical," she told the Washington Post. "It was really kind of unpleasant." Marcel-Keyes told the Post her parents have thrown her out of the house, stopped speaking to her and refuse to pay for college because she is gay. She said she loves her parents.

SOURCE: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/13/politics/main673732.shtml

I have friends who are Christians who have Gay relatives. They make no bones about the fact that it's a sin. But they don't ostracize or disown them. They try their best to love them back into right relationship with God.

Some people feel that Homosexuality is a result of abuse during upbringing. They see it as the result of stern abusive fatherhood, emotionally distant motherhood, etc. If there's any truth to that at all, I think we can see an example here. Just how much garbage has that poor Young Lady had to endure all her life from this man?

(I should be fair here and point out that Keyes has a different take on the matter, and as to whether or not she is actually being "shunned" by him. However, the main source I have for that is the Wikipedia Alan Keyes article, and the source for the quote seems to be on a website that doesn't currently exist.)

I'm writing these words because I have Christian Friends who are big supporters of this guy. One has gotten behind Keyes' involvement in the Obama Birther movement. Alan Keyes has been busy filing lawsuits to get Obama's actual birth Certificate out in the open, claiming that the current President is unfit for office because he allegedly wasn't born in the US.

I don't suppose it matters to Keyes and his Rabid Dogs that Obama has at least 1 verified American citizen parent - his Mother. Or that John McCain was born in Panama. But judging from the way Conspiracy rumors usually go, even if his Birth Certificate was produced and it said "Hawaii" on it, that won't stop the speculation that something was probably done to alter it.

In any case, what should be done is a Congressional Review of the thorny issues surrounding Birth Eligibility, and a decision made for not so much Obama's case, but any case that may arise. Wikipedia points out that some of the issues regarding the Citizenship of children born to US Parents while living overseas have never been fully resolved. In point of fact, since it's not all that clear and a decision that may need to be deliberated on in the event that it is proven that Obama indeed was born outside US Soil, what would be the problem of deciding in His Favor? Why not clarify the law so that anyone born to at least one American Citizen parent can be considered a Natural Born Citizen. If you read the various challenges to eligibility in past American History to different Presidential Candidates, and see how edgy those issue have often been, it would seem like a fair and reasonable decision to make.

There can be only one reason why someone would oppose such a resolution to the problem: They simply want to use the Court System to override the Will of the People, and get rid of Barrack Obama.

And in Keyes case, it's a reasonable question as to whether he might be delusional enough to think he can reverse the election results in his own favor, since he was a losing perennial Candidate for President in 2008 on a minor-party ticket. In fact, Barrack Obama has squashed Keyes' political ambitions twice. The 1st time was when the two were opponents in the 2004 Illinois senate election.

Can the depths of a bitter, twisted, delusional man such as Keyes be seen by anyone else other than God?

I wrote in a previous blog entry that I though Alan Keyes' treatment in the Republican Party during the times he ran for President in the GOP primaries was largely the result of latent racism. And maybe it is. But the fact is, even the more staunchly Conservative Christian Constitution Party wouldn't nominate him, and many of his previous supporters want nothing to do with him. He also has Campaign Debts he won't take responsibility for, and has been known to play a little fast and loose with his Campaign Finances. Personally, seeing his behavior on video leads me to only one inevitable conclusion as to why this Gadfly keeps getting swatted away be even Small Conservative Parties more committed to his same cherished principals:

The man is a Complete Asshole.

This country has no need to steep itself in such perennial nonsense. We desperately need to focus on the issues at hand that are on most people's minds: Health Care Reform. US Involvement in the Affairs of Other Nations. Jobs. The Economy. And in debating these issues, it is discovered that any Elected Leader may not properly represent the will of the people, then vote him or her out of office.

There's only one reason for taking any other path: You don't believe you can win the debates over the issues any other way.

Furthermore, the man is a hypocrite when it comes to issues such as this. He openly criticized Hillary Clinton for moving to New York to run for the US Senate. The he did the same thing to run against Obama in Illinois.

I have written favorably of Keyes in the past, due to my belief he would be better than most mainstream Republicans, and his sticking to his own principals and integrity. Today, the picture emerges of quote a different man than what I had assumed. He is involved with a Whack-Job Separatist Movement that bears strong resemblance to a Cult. His 2008 Vice Presidential running mate was Wiley S Drake, who made headlines in his use of the Imprecatory Prayer to ask God to kill President Obama.

He maintains the same delusion held by many Conservative Christians, that the United States was founded on Christina Principles by Primarily Christian men. This despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/index.html
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
http://www.usbible.com/author/moral_minority.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minority-Skeptical-Founding-Fathers/dp/1566636752/sr=8-1/qid=1163938879/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7739871-3388013?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://williamedelen.org/archives/798
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/state-press-19860429.html
http://nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

Extremist views. Bad attitude. Persecution Complex. Poor Scholarship. Financial problems. Alienating past friends and supporters. This is Alan Keyes, face of the Obama Birther Movement.

I will dance on the grave of these kinds of politics, especially to the extent they have infected the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For more info about Alan Keys, check the following:

http://www.alankeyesexposed.info/Alan-Keys.htm
http://www.alankeyesexposed.info/Allan.Keyes.htm
http://thecorruptionofalankeyes.blogspot.com/

The Alan Keyes Skeleton Closet
http://www.realchange.org/keyes.htm

Alan Keyes and The Minuteman Morasshttp://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/cohenreport/2007/11/20/alan-keyes-and-the-minuteman-morass/

Alan Keyes Connection To Leo Strauss & Bill Kristol
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leo_Strauss

Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class. - Free Online Library

2011-01-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

Also, check the online review here:

Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class. - Free Online Library

The grand vision of the public university as a place where people of diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds come together to learn and teach each other has been undermined by a conservative culture war, asserts English professor Newfield. He links the culture war with an economic war on the middle class that has resulted in a diminution of wages and weakening of political influence. The democratizing mission of public universities has been overrun by market forces that have chipped away at the hard-won benefits of the very people the universities were graduating. Newfield documents the influence of the market on everything from funds allocated to hot career areas of science and commerce while the humanities languish to universities outsourcing student services to tiered employment systems. He examines the historical vision of a knowledge society, represented by public universities, and the attacks of conservatives threatened by its egalitarianism, with raging debates over affirmative action and “political correctness.” Finally, he offers strategies for reclaiming the original mission of the public university. An authoritative, accessible analysis of change in higher public education. --Vanessa Bush

Review

Newfield's argument is original, his evidence varied and rich, and his historical narrative coherent. He situates the university in its broadest social context, and shows that the 'culture wars,' far from being a sideshow, have in fact cleverly been fomented by conservatives to reshape the values of the university, the world-view of its graduates, and the economy which it significantly shapes and which shapes it.
--David L. Kirp, author of Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education

________________________________________________________

I thought this looked like a good one, as it coincides well with my "Is Capitalism Christian" essay. It's an interesting thought: How the Conservative Political Agenda may be really a shill to dumb people down. That is, the ones they can't indoctrinate.

Amazon.com: I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey (9780307358882): Izzeldin Abuelaish: Books

2011-01-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com: I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey (9780307358882): Izzeldin Abuelaish: Books

"What can you do? You can do a lot. You can support justice for all by speaking out loudly to your family, friends, community, politicians and religious leaders. You can support foundations that do good work. You can volunteer for humanitarian organizations. You can vote regressive politicians out of office. You can do many things to move the world toward greater harmony…

"I know that what I have lost, what was taken from me, will never come back. But as a physician and a Muslim of deep faith, I need to move forward to the light, motivated by the spirits of those I lost. I need to bring them justice… I will keep moving but I need you to join me in this long journey."
-from I Shall Not Hate

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish - now known simply as "the Gaza doctor" captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: on January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip, killing three of his daughters and a niece.

By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, this is Abuelaish's account of a Gazan life in all its struggle and pain. A Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lived in Gaza but plied his specialty in Israeli hospitals. From the strip of land he calls home (a place where 1.5 million refugees are crammed into 360 square kilometres of land), the Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines that divide the region for most of his life, as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the border and as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved public health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East.

But it was Abuelaish's response to the loss of his children that made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, in this personal account of his life, Izzeldin Abuelaish is calling for the people of the Middle East to start talking to each other. His deepest hope is that his daughters will be the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

About the Author

Izzeldin Abuelaish, MD, MPH, is a Palestinian physician and infertility expert who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then received a diploma from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of London. He completed a residency in the same discipline at Soroka University Hospital in Israel, followed by a subspecialty in fetal medicine in Italy and Belgium. He then undertook a masters in public health (health policy and management) at Harvard University. Before his three daughters were killed in January 2009 during the Israeli incursion into Gaza, Dr. Abuelaish worked as a researcher at the Gertner Institute at the Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv. He now lives with his family in Toronto, where he is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

YouTube - Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

2011-01-11T05:09:00.000-08:00

YouTube - Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

Around 40 Dems line up against federal abortion funding in healthcare bill

2009-11-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

Around 40 Dems line up against federal abortion funding in healthcare bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Around 40 Dems line up against federal abortion funding in healthcare bill
By Jordan Fabian - 10/24/09 03:02 PM ET

Approximately 40 House Democrats are prepared to block healthcare reform legislation from coming to the floor should the bill include federal subsidies for abortions, said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) Friday.

Stupak, who is conservative on social issues, told CNS News that he has organized the voting bloc to support his amendment that would strip the abortion provisions from the legislation. House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), according to Stupak, said that there is "no way" her panel would provide a vote for his amendment.

The group of 40 would join House Republicans in voting against procedural measure that would draft rules for debating the bill on the House floor. Passage of the measure is necessary for the House to hold a floor vote.

"There’s about 40 like-minded Democrats like myself -- we’ll try to take down the rule," Stupak said. “If all 40 of us vote in a bloc against the rule -- because we think the Republicans will join us -- we can defeat the rule. The magic number is 218. If we can have 218 votes against the rule, we win.”

With 177 Republicans in the House, Stupak would need at least 41 Democrats to cross the aisle and vote against the rule. Stupak's amendment was originally defeated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee during mark-up.

Under language in the Energy and Commerce proposal, one health plan in each health care "exchange" that sells public health insurance must provide coverage for abortion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is currently in the process of merging the House's three health bills.

The Kinks - "Destroyer" & more....

2009-10-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Enough of all of this seriousness. Let's hear some Kinks!

Ralph Nader on the Performance of the Obama Administration So Far

2009-10-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

I could elaborate more, but Ralph says it all better than I can. This is his latest blog entry. I have some additional comments of my own that follow.

http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/2145-Rhetoric-and-Reality.html

I just received a letter from President Obama. Right there on the outside envelope are the words “I need you.” After not answering several letters which I have mailed and faxed to him, I was, for the briefest of moments, curious about this personal plea for help. Then, of course, I realized that it was a form letter from Mr. Obama via the auspices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). I started reading the two page, single-spaced missive. His words prompt responses.

He opens with undeniable declarations, to wit: “There are times in the life of our nation when America’s course can only be set by the concerted effort of citizens determined to pull our country through. This is one of those times—and your personal involvement in moving America forward is absolutely essential.”

Just what this “personal involvement” is all about is unclear, other than to make a “contribution of $25, $35 or even $50 to the Democratic National Committee” which is somehow supposed to make sure that “America’s families are actively engaged in the critical decisions that lie ahead.”

This money will fund something called “Organizing for America” under the DNC which will unleash “volunteers and activists” to “carry our message…all across this great country of ours.”

The “message” includes “reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance for families.” But Mr. Obama has taken the one reform—single payer, which he used to support—off the table and replaced it with a bill over a 1000 pages that will do just the opposite—to the delight of the drug and health insurance industries (see singlepayeraction.org).

Continuing into the letter, Mr. Obama emphasizes that “in communities all across America, people are worried about whether they’re going to have a job and paycheck to count on.”

But he has done nothing to support the card check reform to facilitate workers forming unions—an objective he supported during his presidential campaign. Still no push on Congress, no ringing statement of support, as he has uttered numerous times in promoting his various bailouts of Big Business.

One way to help low income workers to pay their bills is to elevate the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour which is what the minimum wage was in 1968, adjusted for inflation. The federal minimum wage is now $7.25. Adding $2.75 per hour would increase consumer demand in our faltering real economy.

The Democrats and Republicans, who gave bailouts in the trillions of dollars for the paper economy of the mismanaged, speculating, reckless big banks, big investment firms and insurance giants like AIG, should provide some economic assistance to workers on Main Street and not just Wall Street.

Mr. Obama writes: “Let’s put America’s future in the hands of people who are willing to work hard, willing to take their responsibilities seriously….” Perhaps Mr. Obama should read the short book by one of his Harvard Law School professors, Richard Parker, titled Here the People Rule. Professor Parker makes a strong case that the government has a constitutional duty to facilitate the political and civic energies of the people. An important pathway toward this objective is to provide facilities whereby the people can easily band together in their nonprofit civic advocacy associations which they would fund themselves. Mr. Obama can start this process now by supporting a provision to establish a financial consumer association (FCA) with the pending legislation to start a consumer financial regulatory agency.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supported a Financial Consumer Association in 1985 when he was in the House of Representatives. Remember the savings and loan bailouts?

A similar provision can be included in the pending health insurance legislation. These facilities help to redress the present severe imbalance of power between the unorganized people and the corporate power machines which are often taxpayer subsidized and able to deduct lobbying expenses.

These consumer facilities have some precedents. In Obama’s home state of Illinois thousands of consumers of electric, telephone and gas companies voluntarily pay their membership dues to their private advocacy group: the Illinois Citizens Utility Board.

He asks for our “personal participation.” Well why doesn’t he meet with the leaders of consumer, worker and poverty groups in the White House with the frequency with which he meets with the CEOs of giant corporations in the banking, insurance (Aetna), oil, gas, coal, auto and other commercial interests? Instead he has turned his back on the very constituencies which gave him most of his votes. These are the people who remember Mr. Obama’s campaign promises and all his intonations of “hope and change,” including moving to reform the privileged tax laws for the rich and corporations and revising the notorious trade agreements.

Since Mr. Obama wants “personal participation,” how about moving for D.C. statehood or at least his expressed desire for voting rights and Congressional representation for the residents of the nation’s capital? As the months drag on with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House, people are losing hope for any change in their present state of political servitude. _______________________________________________________________

The only thing I have to add to all of this is it would be very interesting to read the Richard Parker book he recommends, above. It could be the ammo needed to exploded all the Right-wing rhetoric along the lines of "government doesn't work," "you just want the government to help you and do nothing," "keep government out of business," etc. etc. I tend to feel that this is simply a ploy to dumb down people so they wont exercise their citizenship and work for real change. As Ralph has pointed out many times in speeches I have heard, the reason why Europe and Canada have such robust Social Health Care Services is because the people worked for them. They got out and demonstrated, organized, had made it happen. I've heard Ralph say before that the Constitution actually calls for the Government to mobilize people to action. This would set the who Lassaiz-Faire approach to society on its ear! As much as I like Ron Paul and feel he's at least a man of his word, I think this "you can't fart unless the Constitution says so" canard has worn out it's welcome.

Should We Expect Much From The Blazers This Year?

2009-10-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'll be damned if I know.

Just call me a Burned Blazers fan who's by now used to having high expectations kinda blunted. And then there' the fact that I can't shake the feeling that there's serious favoritism given to NBA Superstars. Gotta make sure that Shaq goes all the way when he has that great endorsement contract with Burger king, ya know. Game 6 of the 2002 Lakers- Kings NBA Semifinals will haunt many people for years to come. Oh and how about the fact that Kobe Bryant has been a little free with his elbows, and has gotten off Scott free for it? Ask Mike Bibby about that one! And he's done it many times, on many occasions. Other sports fans seem to agree with me that the NBA may be rigged.

However, I do feel like Kobe really worked hard & earned his title last year. I saw to many games where the sweat was pouring off him and the opponents weren't letting up on him to think otherwise.

But I digress...

Getting back to the Blazers, their performance so far in the current preseason has been less than sparking. They have 1 more chance tomorrow at Phoenix to at least come out 50-50 in the exhibition games. Then the real season starts with an opener at home against Houston, who blew us out of the 1st round of the playoffs last year. I take comfort int he fact that this is still a young team and that it was their 1st playoff run, and the Rockets just blindsided them. Portland almost got it back, too. Yao Ming is just no Sabonis.

I predict we'll know soon how it's going to go. If by the halfway season mark, Greg Oden hasn't shown he's finally come out of his beginners fog and is ready to play Basketbell, I say trade him. He's already proven less then the expectations people have had for him. It the Blazers aren't' at least No.1 in the division by then and being recognized as a terror in the West, don't get your hopes up. But they could at least go to the second round of the playoff this year if they work hard at it. Time will tell.

Some buzz has been created by the trade of Shaquille O'neal to the Cleveland Cavilliers. Here's my prediction on that: Shaq gets inured and is sidelined for the rest of the season.

Who do I think will be the terror this year? Boston. With Rasheed Wallace in their camp now and KG healthy, expect them to explode. Should be very, very interesting.

The Prodigal Son: Why No One Is A Hero

2009-10-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Luke 15:11 [Then Jesus] said, There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. 22 But the father said to his servants,Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to celebrate. 25 Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound. 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him! 31 And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.

Why can't we just read the Bible for what it says?

I'm getting tired of every time I mention this parable in connection to God's incredible love that goes beyond our ability to comprehend, people watering that down by trying to comprehend it. I still have a mental picture of my late Grandmother wagging her finger at me with a smile and saying "But..! He really repented!" Did he?

Earth to Those With Ears To Hear: You are trying to make the Prodigal Son into a "Hero," and he most certainly was not.

The other day I got into two disputes with 2 different Brothers in Christ on 2 opposite poles in their view of things. One of them is a self-styled champion of Grace, and views anything even a little bit discipleship as veering into "legalism" and "performance." He subscribes to a Dispensationalist view that tends to regard following the teachings of Christ as not for this age & steers the believer towards selected passages Romans & Galatians. The other discussion was on the Prodigal Son parable that Christ told, and involved a Brother who quotes from Jesus' call to discipleship a lot (nothing wrong with that, really) and uses phrases like "easy repentance" "to denote anything that may be just a simple acceptance of the truth as it is seen in Scripture: We would never find God if he had not come to us first. Well, suffice it to say that I view the former view as rank heresy and the latter as just a bit misguided, but today, my gripe will be with the latter view. Why? because I'm quite frankly tired of Christians trying to make the Prodigal Son in any sense of the word, a Hero. Let's face up to reality: He was not.

Per the discussion that inspired this blog, we were talking regarding to what extent a Christin is supposed to be "Radical" or "On Fire For God." My response was that I don't know many people who are, but it's not a requirement for Salvation. I still say that. If it were, the Prodigal Son would have to be left outside the gates of his Father's place.

I could agree on this: Belief in the Father in an unbelieving world is "radical" in a sense- because the world would rather deny his existence and their responsibility before Him. But the Prodigal Son didn't exactly have a clear understanding of who his Father is, thus the surprise ending. It didn't take "Radical Faith." It just took the faith of a Mustard Seed.

I doubt that the Prodigal had any notion that he was giving anything up because it was the right thing to do- if his Stocks had all returned good investments and/or the Government Bailouts had kept him afloat, he'd still be out there, partying down. I don't think he really got hit with the lesson that the story is meant to convey until he actually arrived home. When I think of "radical," "on fire for Jesus," I think of George Fox or Mother Teresa. "Radical giving, radical loving, radical repentance, radical sacrifice." just doesn't look anything like the story he lived. The Radical one in the story is the Father. Naturally, we go by his example.

But let's skip the small talk. To unpack this, take a look at the son's personal turning point. After spending his Father' inheritance and going from Riches to Rags, he wound up getting a job on a Pig Farm. Here's what he says to himself :

How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!

Now, take a look at a New Testament description of the way Jesus lived his life, and the Mentality a Follower of Jesus Christ is supposed to have:

Philippians 2: 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Notice any difference?

The First is a person who says "Well, what I tried didn't work, and I really have gotten myself into a huge mess over this, so maybe if I go back and apologize and suck it up, I can at least get in better circumstances."

The Second is Someone who never left the Father's Presence, had no need of anything else the World had to offer, and set out to humble himself from the get-go. He was always on Plan A, because it never failed and there was no need for a Plan B.

Does the Prodigal really have the Mentality of Christ?

Adam Clarke, a centuries -old old Methodist Bible teacher, and as such not one certainly to shy away from the "Cross" aspects of Christian life, has this to tell us in his commentary on this parable:

Verse 21. Make me as one of thy hired servants, is added here by several MSS. and versions; but it is evident this has been added, merely to make his conduct agree with his resolution, ver. 19. But by this a very great beauty is lost: for the design of the inspired penman is to show, not merely the depth of the profligate son's repentance, and the sincerity of his conversion, but to show the great affection of the father, and his readiness to forgive his disobedient son.

I don't know if Clarke is correct about the early manuscripts not having "make me your servant." But I don't care, because he clearly is reading the text for what it says. The "son" in this story cannot in any sense of the word, be said to have been living a "sold out' or "radical" life. He more fits the picture of the person who repented at the end of his/her life to avoid dire consequences. Of course, that's not ideal. But God loves those people too.

But what about the repentance that he actually offered? Here's the Speech the missing son had concocted in his head that he was going to give to the Father:

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.

It must be said that we really don't know just how heartfelt this was for him. The 1st thing he says to himself is his personal realization: "I'm in dire straits & where I came from was more comfortable." The 2nd is a speech he put together to say when he saw Dad: "I screwed up and I'm sorry." How much of the 2nd thing was actually his true attitude, and not just a concocted mia cupla, is unknown.

Noted that the Father's welcoming of his Lost Son began when he saw him coming home "from a long way off" and that when they met up, the former didn't even let the latter finish his spiel!

Adam Clarke concurs:

His tenderness of heart cannot wait till the son has made his confession; his bowels yearn over him, and he cuts short his tale of contrition and self-reproach, by giving him the most plenary assurances of his pardoning love.

He sought "fire insurance" and was more sorry that he got caught than anything else. When he "came to himself" as in Jesus' parable, there was no thoughts of how it's better to live an ascetic life free from the worldly pleasures that he just spent the last several years indulging in. It was how he can get a free meal & a place to stay that was better than slopping hogs.

What's "radical" about this parable isn't the Prodigals repentance, it 's the radicaness of the Father's embrace. Every "common sense" person would tell the Father that he was unwise in accepting back a son that hadn't done anything but spit in his face. We get hit with a very "radical" notion, however- the Brother thought he deserved better and -surprise- he did not. God pays you the same whether you start at 6am or at 8:45pm. We don't have any thing in the son in this parable that's worth modeling a Christian life after. We have the example of the Father.

But we have one more spiel to take a look at here. And it's that of the Angry Brother:

Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.

What's this? "I have never disobeyed your command?"

The entire parable is the result of the situation that is described in verses 1 & 2 of Chapter 15: That of Jesus' allowing Tax Collectors & Sinners to come near him, and the fact that the Pharisees complained about it.

Following this, Jesus tells 3 parables: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin and the Lost Son. All of which reveal the heart of the Father in finding That Which Was Lost. Not so much on the ability of What Was Lost to get found. Or of how sincere the Found was behaving.

I have to ask: Just how likely is it that in the face of the Pharisees' criticism, Jesus is replying with an apologetic for the Sinners, telling critical people to ease up because they don't see the "Radical Repentance" these people are engaged in?

It can't be proven by the Father in the Parable of the Lost Son. After his Angry Son threw a fit and insulted the Old Man by not going into his house, the Father gives the Angry Brother this rejoinder:

And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.

"He was lost and now is found." That's it. Same reason for rejoicing that's offered in the 1st 2 parables. Not "Well I know he screwed up royally, but he promises from now on to be a good boy." Jesus means to tell us 3 stories of something that was lost and now is found.

And the Brother? He's a picture of the Pharisees, complaining of the guy who got off easily. Well actually not, because the Lost Son got beat up by life in the process. And he's lying through his teeth when he says "I did everything you told me to."

Really? Just how compliant with the commands of God were the Israelites, if the truth were to be known and the tack were down to brass? He's saying two things here "Father, you are letting this guy off easy" and "I deserve better." No you don't. Israel spent as many decades as it could trying to stretch every limit of the Covenant as possible, even going beyond the Covenant if possible.

It seems like we have a story of 2 Sons whom God invited into fellowship in his household, without making an issue of their less than exemplary performance.

I have a "Radical" idea: Let's stop trying to make every verse fit the grid that we overlay on it. Let's just admit there are exceptions to every rule, and no one knows the reason why except the Inscrutable Mind of God. Otherwise, we wind up committing the Opposite Extreme error of Martin Luther, who wanted to throw out the Book of James beacuse it didn't fit his undsertanding of Grace. Certainly, we ought to teach Following Christ as it is, something that calls us to count the cost. But when I see Brothers and Sisters In Christ repeatedly stumbling in their attempts at getting "On Fire For God" and falling back into sin and self- conmdemnation, then I say it's time to call for a different strategy:

Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

In this story, the One who Jesus asks us to be like is The Father. That's the only cast member in this play that's at all the picture of the Christian life as it was meant to be lived, and the only real Hero of the story. But -and this is where it gets tricky- part of the character of the Father was his Radical Acceptance of someone who most agree was a Selfish Shmoe. That's where he teaches Selfish Shmoes- and those who would cast them out- a thing or two about Radical Love, buy doing the unexpected for the undeserving.

And while I'm at it, since this blog is partially aimed at those who have interest in Mennonite thought, just how can God expect us to love our Enemies, if it was up to them to get their hearts right before we showed them kindness? John Drescher is a Mennonite Bible teacher who has a great quote about this, and as soon as I find it, I'll edit this entry to add it later.

The converse is to fall into the trap of the Angry Brother and demand more than the Father does, and not be happy with the Kindness the Father shows, since he really doesn't have to show any kindness at all!

Romans 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

May the Father help the heart of those who will consider these things.

The GOP Record on Race & Gender: IS Racism a Part of the Problem With Obama?

2009-09-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

Definitely.

Call me daffy, but if racism still does exist in this country, then I would say that it has to be ipso facto at least part of the problem here. If Jimmy Carter knows anything at all about the part of the country he grew up in, then I suspect that much of the animosity still exists. And if it exists, you can bet it is rearing it's ugly head in this hour when we have a Black Man as President.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdndDUtcGvw

What will we say if- God forbid- there's an assassination attempt on Obama's life because of all of this? If some whack job tries to off him because they have been stirred up by all this "Obama is gonna take this country down" talk, then you will see the cracks show & how much animosity bubbles up to the surface! When I see these pictures floating around in even my own highly Liberal City -of Obama made to look like an evil clown, I know what's behind it. Wake up!

Think about it for a minute: Just how honest is the rhetoric that Obama's Health Care Plan is Socialist in nature, when it is SO pock-marked by Coproate Special interests, and is not near the overhaul of our Health Care System that the Single Payer Method would be, if enacted in this country. Or how about the highly discredited, yet persistent Obama Birth Scandal? Would such inaccuracies have even arisen if he were not African-American? Doubtful, since John McCain was born in Panama & no one has said squat about that.

George Bush' policies weren't exactly healthy for the nation either! Did any of those same fine individuals utter a peep when he tried to destroy Social Security, lie us into a needless war, & committed an frontal assault on civil liberties? Nope, because a White Male Republican can do that & it's ok.

But take a step back for a minute & consider the long history the Republicans have had on Race & Gender. What can these things tell us about what we see today?

Lots of Republicans like to bring up the fact that the Democratic Party was at one time home to many of those who supported Slavery & Segregation. That's actually only part of the story, Actually, there has been a movement of Democratic Progressives who opposed these policies as far aback as 1848, with the Free Soil movement (many of whom joined the Republican Party upon is formation in 1854.) The remainder of the Democrats actually split over whether or not to support Lincoln's military polices during the Civil War.

But in the latter half of the 20th Century, profound changes began to occur.

The Separatist Southern Democrats bolted in 1948 when Hubert Humphrey denounced segregation & the party nominated Harry Truman. They formed their own party -The "Dixiecrats" or States Rights Party & nominated Strom Thurmond. There's been a GOP-ward migration of Racist whites to the Republican party ever since, culminating in 1980 when Ronald Reagan announced his run for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Along the way, Robert Byrd & George Wallace lost their respective bids for the Democratic nomination. David Duke, former head of the KKK was a Republican Presidential candidate in 1990. Bob Jones University, until very recently a school that disallowed interracial dating & marriage, was major bastion of Christian Conservativism. Most of my fellow Christians let them get away with it, if they were a true partner in what they saw as a political struggle. The Separatists Whites left the Democratic party in droves, and the Republicans welcomed them with open arms.

But that's still only part of the story!

Anyone notice how the Republicans have almost never had a Woman or African-American Candidate run in their primaries that was very successful? Alan Keyes runs & he's ignored. They parade Colin Powell & Condi Rice & then neither of those enter the primaries. Liz Dole announces but pulls out before the primaries. Then in a desperate attempt to cover up their tracks they nominate Sarah Palin as a sort of "me-too-ism" when the Democrats nominated Obama (they already nominated a woman VP candidate in 1984, Gerry Ferraro.)" The last even slightly successful woman in the GOP primaries was Margaret Chase Smith in 1964, but the results were hardly newsworthy. The Dems have had Chisolm, McCormack, Jackson, Clinton, Schroeder & Obama. Who really today is the party of White Male privilege? The Republicans are, and they don't seem to be interested in changing. The only GOP Candidate for President in 2008 to show up for an event put on by the NAACP when invited, was Tom Tancredo.

OK so now after all of that, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah - the fact of this current trend of Obamaphobia being somewhat racist in nature. Does it necessarily have to be racist in order for it to be a lot of scare-mongering by irresponsible Right-Wing demagogues? Certainly not. I still remember my friend Troy sitting at his computer, pontificating that with Clinton "We have a Hitler In charge! Now we're going to know what it feels like!" None of his - or anyone else's prognostications of Clintonesque doom came true.

And yet, when Rush Limbaugh gets on his bully pulpit and declares an incident of Black kids beating up a White Kid a result of "Obama's America," I have to conclude that somebody is wanting a Race War. Rush, as I have stated on this blog before, has no room to talk. When Glenn Beck can get on Fox News and play the Reverse Racist card, I have to surmise that somebody wants to stir up animosities. When I start hearing honest debates about what's wrong with Obama's Health Care Reform that's not couched in rhetoric, such as the Ralph Nader links I posted above, I'll believe that the Politics of Hate aren't a huge part of this that the Republicans are aiming to profit from. History has shown they have done it before.

Jim Wallis adds some other thoughts to the whole issue on his Sojouners blog.

Is Capitalism Christian?

2009-06-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything pertinent to Christian Faith in quite awhile, so I wanted to get back into it with a couple of blog entries that have been brewing in the back of my head for awhile.

"I never been to the Sem-in-air-ee, but I been to Cal-va-ree." So goes the main line to a song by the Reverend Dan Smith, a Gospel Blues Singer/Harmonica Player from the South who passed away in the Mid 90's. I've tried in vain to find a way of posting his song "I Never Been to Seminary" for all to hear, but I did find out that you can hear a snippet of it if you go here. Such a neat sentiment, y'know? If someone was deprived of the privilege of a good education, it's great that they can say that they have been at the most important place, at the foot of the cross.

Of course, it would seem to me that he should also pay attention to that fact that if it weren't for "Sem-in-air-ee" training people to translate the Hebrew and Greek texts into readable English, perhaps Dan Smith wouldn't even have ever been able to hear about Calvary?

Here's the problem : What happens when we devalue education altogether, and make a lack of education a virtue? After all, there was a time when being a well-trained Theologian got you somewhere in life. At least, a guy named John Calvin seemed to do very well in his career as an Attorney/Theologian/Magistrate. More recently, American Theologian Reinhold Niebuhrwas featured in the 1900's on the cover of TIME Magazine's 25 Anniversary edition.

We live in an age where "folksiness" is a virtue - or at least has been. Somehow having an education is held up as suspect and a thing to be feared as part of a greater cabal to undermine society's cherished values. Folksiness is considered next to Godliness. But what have we traded on, in coming to this? Is the Church as a whole being listened to? Well if you have taken the temperature on how we are doing on the debates on homosexuality and abortion, you'd have to agree: not very well.

You are no doubt by now wondering what Rev Dan Smith, John Calvin, Rienhold Neibuhr and Folksiness all have to do with the title of this essay? Well I'm getting to that through a sort of long route series of thoughts. Bear with me.

Speaking of "Calvary" -it was in a local expression of the organization known as Calvary Chapel that I ran into "Get out of Bible college" sentiments, from the Pulpit no less. I think they relished that in the timber and farming industry town in Klamath County, Oregon. It's less threatening. An area that went almost 70% for Ronald Reagan in 1984 is most likely to be made up of meat-and potatoes thinkers who have no time for deep theological questioning.

And the local college there? It's a technical school with little tolerance for liberal arts. Get your education in something that will make you money is the mantra there. When I moved away from the area and started attending a community college at the other end of Oregon, I was surprised to hear a woman who dropped out of the major we were in exclaim that she wasn't bothered at all by not finishing her degree. As she said with robust pride: "Why? I now have a whole vast area of knowledge that I didn't have before!"

Why is knowledge not valued for it's own worth?

Why is anti-intellectualism such a deeply entrenched part of American life?

I don't pretend to know all the answers to those questions but I will definitely try to offer a few good clues before I'm done writing this. One better question to answer is: how do we get back from this long and winding road of hayseed-edness being so highly regarded?

Perhaps if Education were considered a basic human right, even up through the University level? After all, we consider it a basic human right up through grade 12, and society foots the bill. Then people would spend more time getting educated and gaining knowledge for it's own sake, not for it's sake as a commodity that produces financial results. And thing such as theology and philosophy will be more highly regarded as fields of study. Not that they aren't now, but face it: whens the last time TIME has put a Bible Scholar on the cover?

I like getting ahold of magazines and books that libraries often throw out. You never know what little gems can be found that will be of great use down the road. I recently came across the 12/11/2007 issue of Christian Century magazine, and was stimulated to though by an interview with Nicholas Lash, a Catholic theologian I'd never heard of before. You could say that this entire essay was stimulated by my having read this interview.

On page 32 is the following hot potato question by the interviewer and Lash's response:

CC: You’ve also written sympathetically about Marxism. After the collapse of communism, is Marxism still a philosophy that Christians need to engage? Why is it that some viable Christian version of socialism is so difficult to imagine in England and America?

Lash: "Those who doubt that Christians still need to engage with Marx are as foolish as those who doubt that we still need to engage with Aristotle, Kant or Hegel. At the heart of Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode of production was his insight that it led, with almost mechanical inevitability, to what he called "the universalization of the commodity form," the transmutation not only of all things, but also of all relations, into commodities.

"I can understand why, in a culture as driven and absorbed by messianic capitalism as is the United States, versions of socialism of any kind are hard to comprehend with sympathy.

"As millions of destitute Americans continue to be deprived of adequate access to good health care, people of all parties in the UK regard the retention of the National Health Service, "free at the point of delivery," as essential to our cultural health."

"All things... all relations" ...turned into commodities. Health Care being charged an arm & a leg for because of the justification of an earned income that reaches the stratosphere. Degrees pursued because of their monetary value in "getting a job." Pastors of churches taking outside jobs, and the community is impressed that they are willing to work with everyone else, even though in Biblical times that situation of life was considered an albatross. Such a thing really points up the lowered esteem of the Church in our day and age.

Back to what I was stating earlier: Ever wondered why The Church is losing the debate on Homosexuality and Abortion?

Have we accommodated the language of democracy too deeply into our self-understanding?

Can we really tell that Doctor that he or she can be free to make $3 million per year and not just a paltry $1 million? And then out of the other side of our mouths tell that woman she can't have an abortion? Or that Gay Couple "you cannot marry?"

No. Not in a society that regards relationships as commodities and values individual freedom above all else. The only arguments we will soon be engaging is the Rush-Limbaugh-like "good old fashioned middle class values" dribble. Those don't hold up very well in a society where autonomy is sacrosanct.

Any arguments to the contrary regarding the assumed freedom of terminating a pregnancy or marrying a person of the same sex should be rooted in Communitarian understandings. The fact is, every culture which has held together throughout time and even mass immigration to other parts of the world has honored the sanctity of traditional marriage and the unborn. The Eastern Orthodox, Conservative Jewish Faith and even Old Order Amish and Mennonites tend to come to mind. Split of these communities happen when toleration of dessent leads them to conclude otherwise.

How did God go about keeping society in Ancient Israel from devolving into a mess of commodity-worshipping free for all? The year of Jubilee was one way. It didn't matter if you still owed money on the cusp of the 7-year period, and you had sold yourself into slavery to pay off your debts & feed your family. Your debts were to be forgiven and you were to be set free if you wanted. That kept the economy form freefalling into the type of financial mess much like today's Subprime Mortgage Crisis. And it was Redistribution of the Wealth, a cornerstone of Socialism. Today, if you get a debt forgiven it is income to you. The Government sends you a 1099C in the mail.

In this day and age where lawlessness and disregard for management of God's creation extends beyond personal reproductive morality, and into how we manage our fiances on a mass scale affecting society as a whole, this is a timely debate. Let the Church enter into a debate: Just how in line with the Judeo-Christian God's values is our Economic system?

Oh, I'm well aware that this would be an issue that would touch on so many things that couldn't possibly be covered in a single blog entry. But I'm ready and willing to engage it. One immediate question comes to mind: How would life in Christian perspective look like when implementing such changes as I am doing? Or what might get to the heart of what some may be thinking: Am I advocating a return to unhealthy church/state liaison's of the past that caused untold oppression & bloodshed?

In point of fact, advocating an "other-centeredness" about life, which is at the heart of my advocating a Christian-based repudiation of Capitalism, is exactly what will address these issues quite nicely. The Church ought to think of itself as like The Red Cross (an apt if imperfect analogy I cant remember where I heard): As a separate entity from Government that engages with society, challenging everyone towards implementations of peace & justice, as much as is humanly possible.

And what if future generations feel the need to go to war on behalf of the Secular Nation? Try the best to talk them out of it. but if they must go, make sure that when they come back, they are handed 2 things: A Bible and a Shovel. One for preaching to the lost and the other for rebuilding. And then send them back into the field from which they just came. And then begin to think about where else we can implement other-centeredness at the heart of Christian life.

Some other issues need ot be addressed in regards to this. No doubt people will talk about the simpleness of the disciples and Paul calling all his accomplishments in the flesh as refuse for the sake of the Kingdom as a rebuttal to my pro-education stance. That will be taken up soon, in anothe rentry.

Unjust Sex Offender Laws and Prosecutions: YOU could be the next victim!

2009-06-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Trailer for the Sean Penn Documentary "Witch Hunt"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0C2aQprdIM&feature=player_embedded

I've seen this documentary and it's very good, if also very disturbing. It's scary to think we live in a country that allows such "Cowboy Law Enforcement" -as they call it. Except my Dad, God rest his soul, was an actual Cowboy and he wouldn't be anywhere near as stupid. Good that this movie was made, and that Sean Penn is lending his name and clout behind raising awareness of this travesty- of falsely accusing adults of sexual crimes against children. More can be learned about it at http://www.witchhuntmovie.com/.

Speaking of false or specious accusations, the blog ConstitutionalFights has this to say about the Sex Offender Registry and why many who are on it don't belong there:

1. Romeo and Juliet liaisons, false accusations of vindictive teens against an older teen (18 or 19).

2.False accusation by vindictive parents in child custody cases and/or family feuds- There are more of these than most people would believe. There are many reports of people who admit to having lied about being molested when they were younger. Now they would like to have the person wrongly convicted on their testimony set free.

3.Mutual consensual sex- but being 3 yrs. and 1 day older than the willing teen (can bring and has brought multiple felony indictments).

4. Sex between consenting teen prostitute (who looks older and even may have lied about her age) with an adult male.

5. Criminal charges that later are dropped for insufficient proof but not appealed in time, so still on registry.

It's a good thing that Jesus wasn't born in 21st Century America, or Joseph would be in jail right now for supposedly getting 14 -15 year old Mary pregnant. Nice thought, eh?

I realize there should be some limits on personal freedom or society will be in chaos. But when I compare US laws to age of consent laws around the globe, I gotta think we are way too Draconian.

Some more good resource websites:

Reform Sex Offender Laws Dot Org

Corrupted Justice For those who think Perverted Justice and "To Catch A Predator" are a blight on society. Reports regularly on civil Suits being brought against PJ, and Dateline NBC.

Cyber Stalking Law A state-by-state compendium of links to cyberstalking laws around the country.

http://www.freedommarchusa.org/ Infortmation about the upcoming June 27th 2009 march for awareness of wrongful convictions.

http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/

http://www.falserape.net/index.html

http://moraloutrage.net/

Larry Norman - The Last Time (Stones Cover)

2009-06-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_1sNy1cYpI&feature=related

What Ralph Nader Was Right About (So Far)

2009-06-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well a few of my friends who voted for Obama thought I was just "throwing my vote away" by supporting the Oregon Progressive Party candidate for President in 2008, Ralph Nader. It's true, I am bullheaded and voted for Mr. Nader three times. But in previous times, the loyalist Democrats could accuse us "Nader-traitors" of delivering the election to George W. Bush and denying Gore & Kerry the election. This despite the fact that it could be argued both men defeated themselves.

Well, they still do that. Last year while out campaigning for Nader, I met a motorist who told me that Nader had "millions of dead at his feet," for stopping Al Gore. Of course, this ignores two facts 1) Joe Lieberman was Gore's VP running mate and 2) Gore himself said Iraq had ties to terrorism and Weapons of Mass destruction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chn1qAn1f3w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFBl0fnMUVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE48XHKG64

Well the dreaming is now officially over. A Democrat is in the White House. So instead of talking about how much better off we COULD have been, we can now get to more important buisness at hand: The fact that we most certainly are not better off at all.

The following is a breakdown of some of the issues raised or touched on by Ralph Nader during his 2008 bid for the Presidency, and how he and we tried to warn you all. Obama is looking ore and more like Bush's 3rd term all the time.

HEALTH CARE:

As Nader put it, Canadian Style Single-Payer Health Care Insurance was off the table according to Obama. So far Mr. Obama has refused to allow single payer advocates to speak at conferences he's held with Health Insurance Industry officials on Health Care reform. Mr. Nader was in support of Single Payer during the 2008 election, and he and his supporters continue to speak out in favor of it.

IRAN:

Accoring to Counterpunch.org, Obama is talking doublespeak on Iran. On the one hand, pomises of dialogue, on the other, rhetoric about Iran developing Nuclear bombs and supporting intenational terrorism very similar to his predecessor, George W. Bush.

According to an interview with Nader on Democracy Now!, the longtime Consumer Advocate stated:

"The point is that we are exaggerating that threat instead of using diplomacy, number one. Number two, Iran does not have nuclear weapons; they're nowhere near nuclear weapons, according to intelligence estimates. Number three, Israel has 250 nuclear weapons. Does Iran really want to commit suicide? And number four, two major national security experts in Israel have been reported as saying Iran is not a problem." "Ralph Nader on Barack Obama: 'It is Quite Clear He is a Corporate Candidate from A to Z'," "Democracy Now!" interview, June 18, 2008.

FAIR TRADE:

On the Nader/Gonzales website, a call was made to replacing NAFTA with "open agreements that pull up, rather than pull down... environmental, labor and consumer standards." Evidence is that the current administration may be talking out of both sides of it's mouth as far as renegotiating NAFTA goes, as evidence in the recent debacle over trucking restrictions with Mexico. This is a shift from Obama's having campaigned on supposed intentions to renegotiate NAFTA.

WAR IN IRAQ:

Accoring to Votenader.org: "The current political strategy of pre-emptive war in the Middle East is a disaster... It has bloated the already wasteful military budget and has cost at present over 4,000 American lives, nearly 100,000 American injuries, and over a million Iraqi civilian lives. Nader/Gonzalez propose a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq. A target of withdrawing troops in six months will be set. The war is costing taxpayers nearly $4,600 every second — and that doesn’t include the long-term reconstruction costs."

Obama originally promised a 16-month timetable for withdrawl from Iraq, then fudged on that goal. It is thought that what our government may be correuntly pusrsung is not withdrawl, but long term occupation of Iraq. According to a recent Bill Moyers brodacst, the US is maintaining a fortress that passes itself off as an embassy in Bahgdad, and a similar project has been in the works for a fortress-like embassy in Pakistan, all run by independent mercenary contractors such as Blackwater. In fact, such projects have been underway since the Bush administration.

WALL STREET/AUTOMOTIVE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN:

Ralph Nader predicted the recent Wall Street meltdown, stating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were on track to follow the same path to financial ruin the savings and loan industry headed down in the 80's & 90's. He opposed the vary same bailout that both Senator McCain and then Senator Obama voted for last year, and laid out a 10 point plan for dealing with the crisis and potential future bailouts.

Concerning a General Motors bankruptcy, Mr. Nader has said it would launch "a conclusive Death Star to tens of thousands of jobs, thousands of small businesses and adverse effects to hundreds of communities around the country." He also blasted Obama's automotive task force for forcing Crysler to cut 789 dealerships that will cost jobs and put more people in need of the government dole, costing taxpayers more to support the unemployed.

PRE-CONCLUSION:

Well, I've about burnt myself out doing this particular blog entry. I will likely pick up on these same themes as I continue to blog, and anyone can look at what I've already written for more info. It appears there is so much to talk about, and that others have does similar research to critique Obama's record and have readily avilible breakdowns of the issues at hand. Consider visiting the following:

Nader.org - Not to be confused with Votenader.org, this is Ralph's ongoing blog where you can view open letters he's written to the current adminsitration regarding various issues of the day. Suffice it to say, he lets them have it!

The Trail of Broken Promises - Written last October by Matt Gonzales, Ralph's Vice Presidential running mate. He details a long history of captulating ot the Republicans by Obama, even going back to his record as an Illinois Stare Senator. Pelosi and Reid get some of his side-swipes as well.

All I can say at this point, in regards to how much we are being taken down the primrose path- beleive me it depresses me to even type these very words- but it needs to be said:

TO BE CONTINUED...

Sotomayor Sorta Slimed by Pugnacious Partisan Pundits : Get OFF it and confirm her, already!

2009-06-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Republican Party is fast becoming irrelevant with each passing day. No other recent event than the nomination of Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor by President Obama to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court proves this fact.

Barrack Obama was elected President last year by a landslide. He's a Democrat. His opposition, the Republicans, want him to fail. 'Nuff said. You can't possibly get any more to the core of it than that. IF John McCain were the current president and she was nominated by him, not a peep would be coming out of their crooked mouths.

That last statement is not in the least as far out as it may seem on the surface. Ms. Sotomayor was originally appointed to the Federal Courts by then President George H.W. Bush, and none other than Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato was one of her early backers. Later, she stood with then President George W. Bush's Mexico City Policy, which prohibited the US form contributing to entities that promote abortion, writing that "the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds." In the 2002 court case Pappas vs. Giulianni, Sotomayor dissented from her colleagues’ ruling that the New York Police Department could terminate an employee from his desk job who sent racist materials through the mail. As Wikidpedia reports, "She warned the majority about 'gloss[ing] over three decades of jurisprudence and the centrality of First Amendment freedoms in our lives just because it is confronted with speech it does not like.'"

So she was originally appointed and supported by Republican officeholders and has sided with a Republican President on abortion at least once.

And yet Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have the balls to call her a reverse racist?

This absolutely incoherent, intellectually dishonest, and lacking in any credibility whatsoever move by individuals desperate to bring Obama down is exactly why the GOP should pack it in. Give it up, clean out your desk, call it a day. When we can't depend on an opposition party to tell us the unvarnished truth in it's pursuit of giving us access to a varying opinion and promote democracy, it's time to retire!

IF we were to believe the narrative offered by the President's opponents regarding the state of the economy, and how Obama's spending is simply going to take us further down the road to ruin, then let's focus on that issue, and stop giving up unsubstantiated moonbattery! In other words, people need to Fact Check the claims of our elected and appointed leaders. But more importantly, we need to leaders to spare us the grandstanding.

As has been constantly repeated ad nauseum by the talking heads who make up our Television news media, the basis of the claim of some that Sotomayor is a racist rests on her "wise Latina woman" comment in her 2001 speech to the University of California, Berkely School of Law. <-- Click that link to get the full text of her speech. I'll leave to your judgment as to whether or not she deserves the caricature that has been foisted on her by certain pundits in love with the sound of their own voices. As far as I'm concerned, such fatheadedness as displayed by these two White Males in particular makes me think she had every damn right to say what she said even if she literally MEANT that a Latina Woman had better judgement than a White Male!

Furthermore, who is Limbaugh, of all people, to go around talking about Racism? The truth is, he's made several unambiguously racist statements. Click here to research verification on these, complete with audio from Youtube to back it up! Furthermore, it is a matter of historical record that the Republican party has been courting verified racists in order to win elections. Check Bob Herbert's column in the NY Times for a breif breakdown on this.

Further into the eye of the storm of controversy over Ms. Sotomayor is her taking part in a decision involving Firefighters seeking promotions in New Haven, Connecticut. From the Wikipedia article on Sonia Sotomayor:

"Sotomayor was a member of a 2008 Second Circuit panel in the high-profile case Ricci v. DeStefano that upheld the right of the City of New Haven to throw out its test for firefighters and start over with a new test, because the City believed the test had a "disparate impact" on minority firefighters. (No black firefighters qualified for promotion under the test, whereas some had qualified under tests used in previous years.) The City was concerned that minority firefighters might sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The City chose not to certify the test results and a lower court had previously upheld the City's right to do this. Several white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who had passed the test, including the lead plaintiff who has dyslexia and had put much extra effort into studying, sued the City of New Haven, claiming that their rights were violated. After an appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case April 2009, and a ruling has not yet been issued."

Note the following about the above case: 1) A Hispanic was involved in the suit against the city of New Haven, and Sotomayor still went with how she interpreted the law. 2) The city had every reason to believe that they could be liable for a civil rights lawsuit if they didn't throw the test results out. 3) The decision upheld the precedent set by a lower court. 4) NO ONE, Black, White or Hispanic received favoritism by the city's decision, because ALL the test results were thrown out by everyone who took it. 5) It can be seen in and of itself as a case of judicial restraint, since the panel Sotomayor served on refused to override local government authority.

How does any of this amount to "Reverse Discrimination?" Answer: It doesn't!

Taking the larger view of this, one had to see the clown circus we are enduring as politically motivated by the Party Not Currently In the Whitehouse. Am I saying it's wrong to oppose and criticize President Obama? Not at all. But how about following Ralph Nader's example, and criticize the President on actual policies and things he's concretely done since taking office, instead of chasing after ghosts and fairytales?

But then you have to hand it to the Republicans, they perfected ghost stories & fairytales when the got us into the Iraq war. Ouch! Did I say something to step on someone's toes?

Many on the Right will of course, not back down from the character they have tried to paint of Ms. Sotomayor. Worlnetdaily.com, a website never noted for doing a lot of Fact Checking about anything, wallows in the longstanding traditional Conservative tactic of guilt-by-association concerning the new Supreme Court Nominee. They do this by linking her to groups that advocate the Southwestern U.S. be returned to Mexico by virtue of her membership in the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic Civil Rights Advocacy group. It didn't occur to them to ask her if she actually agrees with that idea, did it? Never mind that it's actually not really a policy of La Raza's, so much as it is one held by groups they are connected to.

But according to many pundits, her membership in La Raza makes her Racist, despite the fact that her records as a judge doesn't always side with liberal views on issues such a civil rights.

However, even pundits such as Rush Limbaugh aren't impervious to backlash, as seen in this recent video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpUY_SmYFyI&feature=player_embedded

And then there's the fact that she has sometimes sided with he Pro-life position. That little fact is starting to dawn on Rush Limbaugh. Personally, I think it's great that she allowed Pro-life people to have their convictions and I say if that's any indication of how she makes decisions, confirm her now! Gasp! You mean people who aren't favorable to abortion can have their convictions and not be vilified? Can they really be seen as they are, simply people who believe in the sanctity of life, rather than as a cabal with an agenda to restrict women's freedom?

And if she turns out to be a closet Pro-lifer, good on Obama for having the foresight to pick her. And it if wins him re-election buy virtue of mollifying some of his critics, that's life in the big city, Homie!

I haven't yet touched on the issue of empathy vs. rule of law- a side show to all of this clown circus that's been swirling around Sotomayor's nomination. But I have to say: when it comes to a human being judging another human being as opposed to the concept of "techno judges" opening their books and mechanically making rulings based on a piece of paper, I'm all for empathy! That's why- as I believe- in the Bible we find the Year Of Jubliee implemented by Yahweh partly for the purpose of economic justice - and interpretation of that particular set of laws often being used for debt cancellation.

But the most important underlying issue here is simply that any such critique of elected and unelected leaders needs to be sober, factual, and without partisan agenda. If the Republicans can't help us get there, then I repeat my earlier assertion: pack it in.

Insurance Companies Hold Billions in Tobacco Stocks

2009-06-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

Insurance Companies Hold Billions in Tobacco Stocks � Single Payer Action

SERIOUSLY - You trust the industry to do what's best for us after this? Oh, but of course, "The Market" can correct all our problems! Ya'right! So what's our lovely "Private Sector" solution for htis kind of conflict-of-interest? It's hard for me to explain this to Pea-brained Neo-Capitlaists, because they don't have a clue how complex things really are.

Where's the "Invisible Hand" that's supposed to punish bad behavior when you need it? Obviously firmly wedged inside someone else's Cookie Jar!

Insurance Companies Hold Billions in Tobacco Stocks

More than a decade after Harvard researchers first revealed that life and health insurance companies were major investors in tobacco stocks – prompting calls upon them to divest – the insurance industry has yet to kick the habit.

A new article on insurance company holdings, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, shows that U.S., Canadian and U.K.-based insurance firms hold at least $4.4 billion of investments in companies whose subsidiaries manufacture cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco and related products.

Tobacco products currently contribute to the deaths of 5.4 million people worldwide annually, according to the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a major risk factor for stroke, heart attack, lung disease and cancer.

“Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people’s health,” said Dr. J. Wesley Boyd, the lead author of the article. “It’s clear their top priority is making money, not safeguarding people’s well-being.”

To illustrate their point, Boyd and his colleagues point to Newark, N.J.-based Prudential Financial Inc., which sells life insurance and long-term disability coverage.

With total tobacco holdings of $264.3 million, Prudential Financial is a major investor in three tobacco firms, including Reynolds American, whose subsidiary R.J. Reynolds manufactures Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes, and Philip Morris, maker of the popular Marlboro brand.

Sun Life Financial Inc., based in Toronto, sells life, health, disability and long-term care insurance. It also owns slightly over $1 billion in stock in two tobacco companies, including $890 million in Philip Morris.

London-based Prudential Plc, which offers health, disability, and long-term care insurance, has holdings of $1.38 billion in two tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco, which markets Kent and Lucky Strike cigarettes.

The researchers also itemize the substantial tobacco holdings of Northwestern Mutual of Milwaukee and Massachusetts Mutual Life of Springfield, Mass., along with those of Standard Life Plc, a health and life insurer based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Boyd and his co-authors, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, culled their data from Osiris, a proprietary database of industrial, banking and insurance companies. Osiris draws upon Securities and Exchange Commission filings and news reports from providers like Dow Jones and Reuters.

“Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating,” the authors write, “insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both. Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit - and smokers lose - twice over.”

The same researchers, all of whom are affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program, first published data about the “tobacco-insurance company connection” in 1995 in the medical journal Lancet.

They say that because private, for-profit insurers have repeatedly put their own financial gain over the public’s health, readers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom should be wary about insurance firms’ participation in care.

“These data raise a red flag about the prospects of opening up vast new markets for private insurers at public expense, as has happened in our state of Massachusetts, whose recent health care reform is often cited as a model for national reform,” the researchers found.

Randy Stonehill: "Lung Cancer Lament"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xzZMfM44s&feature=player_embedded

Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Torture on Obama’s Watch

2009-05-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

Two postings in a few days on Obama and torture? Overkill? Nahhhhh- it's a deserved shot if there ever was one! [-}

Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Torture on Obama’s Watch

Original article:

http://www.alternet.org/story/140022/

No Blank Check for the IMF - Neil Watkins - God’s Politics Blog

2009-05-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

As Bruce Cockburn put it: "IMF, dirty MF!" ;-)

No Blank Check for the IMF - Neil Watkins - God’s Politics Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zccrskOqQ&feature=player_embedded

Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos - Yahoo! News

2009-05-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos - Yahoo! News

This whole thing about torture -excuse me, "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" -reminds me of the Lawyers & Pharisees in Jesus' day. Everything is defined on razor-thin aspects of what does & doesn't constitute torture. "If we waterboard someone 48 hours it's not torture, but if we do it for 72 hours, it is." I'm just throwing numbers out there as an example, but it serves to illustrate how flaky legal opinions can be.

The only thing we do know for sure about waterboarding it that it's too grueling an ordeal for Sean Hannity to live up to his offer to be waterboarded for charity.

I bet Dick Cheney won't let Jesse Ventura waterboard him, either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqmH49VBC0&feature=player_embedded

Ed Schultz interviews Dr. Margaret Flowers

2009-05-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

Arrested for fighting for healthcare reform!

Ed Schultz interviews Dr. Margaret Flowers - PNHP’s official Blog

Barrack Obama missed out on the 1960's- the decade of social upheaval and change that brought about the Anti-Vietnam War protests, and the continued non-violent demonstrations of Martin Luther King. People were harassed, beaten and arrested for what they believed in.

Then we elected out 1st ever President of African-American descent.

So he benefited from the work others did who laid their lives on the line. He doesn't have to, thanks to them.

And now others are laying their lives on the line at these Senate hearings in order to get the option of Single-Payer Healthcare on the table. As Ralph Nader put it in an email I got from him today:

"(Senate Finance) Committee chair Senator Max Baucus called a full 28 witnesses for two hearings on health care reform. Senator Baucus called on the Business Roundtable... The Heritage Foundation... the lobby known as America's Health Insurance Plans. But not one of the 28 witnesses called by Baucus supported what the majority of the American people and what the majority of doctors, nurses and health economists want: Single payer, full Medicare for all, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital health care."

Ironic, isn't it? That not only did Obama miss out on the suffering others did on his behalf in the 60's, he's part of the problem. He himself kept Single Payer Activists from speaking out at a recent White House Conference on Health Care Reform.

Maybe there is something to be said for a few years of experience necessary to become President. But not for job-related skill-building, so much as just the experiences of life. To wit: if Obama has to take to the streets to fight for the basics of life, maybe he would be more sympathetic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkGyWTCuUrI&feature=player_embedded

Archbishop: Obama advances anti-life agenda - White House- msnbc.com

2009-05-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

GO Archbishop Burke! :-]

Archbishop: Obama advances anti-life agenda - White House- msnbc.com

Chinese health care reformers aim to help rural areas - USATODAY.com

2009-05-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

Chinese health care reformers aim to help rural areas - USATODAY.com

If the country that has the most butt-kicking economy in the world is doing this, perhaps the U.S. should take notice?

Year Long Disaster: A fine @$$ Son-of-A-Davies comes into his own!

2009-05-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

They are called Year Long Disaster, they come from Califonia, their guitarist/vocalist is Daniel Davies, son of Dave Davies of the classic rock group The Kinks. And they ROCK! That's all you need to know.

Year Long Disaster: The Mad Shrew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ah0a25j0g

Year Long Disaster: Leeda Atomica (live)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zATNakmM07U

Year Long Disaster - Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9y4DEnkP8

Karl Barth ROCKS! :]

2009-05-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Who says a Theologian can't Rock n' Roll? ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJrfUbmh8Us&feature=player_embedded

What are other Countries doing about Health Care?

2009-05-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly but surely immersing myself in the current debate over healthcare reform in this country. It's is believed that this is the year that a serious step is going to be taken towards this end, that being of providing adequate healthcare for everyone in society regardless of their ability to pay. Obama and the recently elected Democratic majority are seen by some pundits as getting ready to muster the political will accomplish that very goal before the end of 2009. Will it be enough?

Some are not conviced that it will be enough. Too little support has been given to bringing Single Payer Health Insurace, the system currently used by Canada, to be implemented in the United States. People of this group note that President Obama took Single-Payer Health Insurance off the table in the 2008 campaign. Recently he met with leaders of the health insurance industry, but denied an opening for single-payer advocates to speak. He has done nothing to push forward H.R. 676, the current bill before the house which would bring Single Payer to the U.S.

One individual who I was debating this topic with on the Sojourners blog asked me the following: "How can you guarantee health care for everyone? Political will cannot defy the laws of supply/demand and the reality of scarcity." To respond, I have to explain that personally, I believe that leaving everything to those laws is a basic evil that we need to cure. I agree with James Galbraith, who says we should work on a "Planned Economy." If I understand him correctly, then applying this to healthcare means we would simply "plan" for there to be healthcare for all. So we would provide health insurance for everyone though the single payer method, and move to build more medical facilities and educate more medical personnel through planning.

Check out this video in support of the Single Payer System
by Portland, OR talk show host Tom Hartman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VFd-U4dAQY

Think market-based solutions are the way to go? Check out this .pdf file on how Japan got ahead in the auto-indsutry through marekt controls. For heady economics buffs only:

epi.3cdn.net/30067e5f476cedcaf2_76m6bgb75.pdf

But to get away from debates, I thought it might be a bit enlightening and refreshing to see what other places in the world are doing for their citizens as far as the health care system goes. I'm tired of talking about Canada, Sweden, Denmark & The U.K. Although I believe all those nations have good healthcare systems in place, and that much of the criticism comes from one-sided reporting intended to confuse the debate rather than enlighten it. But maybe they have been overdone? I chose 4 nations who have been recently mentioned in the news over the past couple of years and model economies for one reason or another, and simply Googled up something pertinent to how they provide care for their citizens. I skipped China because what I found out is that they are growing and changing way too fast to really even have a health care system in place. I picked 4 countries that have been mentioned din the news at one time or another for something positive we should be looking into. As an example, The Netherlands was cited as a model for building bulwarks against the threat of hurricanes.

I find it amazing that government controls or provision of such care is characterized as dangerous an inadequate, and yet almost every industrialized nation in the world seems to have implemented some form of it or another. And they have a public health insurance system, which is similar to what Single Payer is about (except that in Single Payer Health Insurance, only public insurance is allowed for basic care.)

Here's some of the results of what I did find:

Israel

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%2520History/Israel%2520at%252050/The%2520Health%2520Care%2520System%2520in%2520Israel-%2520An%2520Historical%2520Pe

On January 1, 1995, the National Health Insurance Law went into effect. The law sets forth the state's responsibility to provide health services for all residents of the country (not including tourists.) The law stipulates that a standardized basket of medical services, including hospitalization, will continue to be supplied by the sick funds. Sources for funding of health costs include progressive health insurance premiums paid by each resident, employers' health tax payments, National Insurance Institute funds, funds from the Ministry of Health budget and consumer participation payments. The insurance premiums are collected by the National Insurance Institute.

The law provides that:

*Every resident must register as a member with one of the four sick funds.

*The sick funds may not bar applicants on any grounds, including age and state of health.

*Equal status is accorded to all four sick funds.

Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Japan

In the Japanese health care system, healthcare services, including free screening examinations for particular diseases, prenatal care, and infectious disease control, are provided by national and local governments. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments. Since 1973, all elderly persons have been covered by government-sponsored insurance. Patients are free to select physicians or facilities of their choice.

Brazil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Brazil

The Brazilian health system is composed of a large public, government managed system, the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde) , which serves the majority of the population, and a private sector, managed by health insurance funds and private entrepreneurs.

The public health system, SUS, was established in 1988 by the Brazilian Constitution, and sits on 3 basic principles of universality, comprehensiveness and equity. Universality states that all citizens must have access to health care services, without any form of discrimination, regarding skin color, income, social status, gender or any other variable.

The Netherlands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_Netherlands

“Long-term treatments, especially those which involve (semi-)permanent hospitalization, and also disability costs such as wheelchairs, are covered by a a state-run mandatory insurance. This is laid down in the Algemene Wet Bijzondere Ziektekosten (AWBZ, see article in the Dutch Wikipedia), "general law on exceptional healthcare costs" which first came into effect in 1968.

For all regular (short-term) medical treatment, there is a system of obligatory health insurance, with private health insurance companies. These insurance companies are obliged to provide a package with a defined set of insured treatments .

“This system came into effect in January 2006. For those who would otherwise have insufficient income, an extra government allowance is paid to make sure everyone can pay for their health care insurance. People are free to purchase additional packages from the insurance companies to cover additional treatments such as dental procedures and physiotherapy. These additional packages are optional.

“A key feature of the Dutch system is that premiums are set at a flat rate for all purchasers regardless of health status or age. Risk variances between funds due to the different risks presented by individual policy holders are compensated through risk equalization and a common risk pool which makes it more attractive for insurers to attract risky clients. Funding for all short term health care is 50% from employers, and 45 percent from the insured person and 5% by the government. Children until age 18 are covered for free. Those on low incomes receive compensation to help them pay their insurance. Premiums paid by the insured are about 100 € per month (about US$145 in Jan 2008) with variation of about 5% between the various competing insurers.”

********************************************

Still not convinced? Check out this data from Business Week magazine, which shows the US as last in healthcare when compared with 6 other nations:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/10/1031_healthcare/source/1.htm

Why do we have such a problem realizing we need serious change?

Where to find info on the campaign for Single-Payer:

Definition of Single-Payer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care

Physicians for a National Health Program:

http://www.pnhp.org/

Rep. John Conyers' website:

http://conyers.house.gov/

Healthcare-Now!:

http://www.healthcare-now.org//

SIngle Payer Action:

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/

Citizens Alliance For Antional Health Insurace:

http://www.hr676.org/

Community: Does it really mean anything?

2009-05-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is a serious question! It came to mind after a couple of recent events. One in particular was learning that a local outreach to the homeless –a drop in center to be exact- had begun to put the ban on sleeping in their facilities. Homeless people stay out most of the night and are dog tired when they get in, even if they had a place to sleep when they were out and about. So they are likely to rest a head on any nearby table or zap out in any available chair. There’s nothing wrong with that! But apparently, sleeping is associated with being on drugs in somebody’s mind. But the reason given on the public notice posted read something like this: “Sleeping Is no longer allowed at (Name of Outreach), - We can’t build community while you're sleeping”!

Huh?

Community is as community does. You don’t have community if you are forcing others to conform to your expectations in a situation so ridiculously benign as sleeping. Dictionary .com gives various definitions of community, one of which is “a social group of any size whose members resides in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.” Well I hate to break it to certain people, but homelessness IS a culture in and of itself! How are you building community by insisting they behave in a way contrary to the given culture, i.e. by setting them up for a fall with a rule like “no sleeping?”

That’s only one anecdote. There have been several others encounters I have had over the years dealing with that word, too many to list, really. Personally I'm beginning to think that "Community" is a stupid, politically correct word that doesn't really mean anything, and should be eliminated from our vocabulary altogether.

And why not? It seems to me that when you attempt to build community based on your idea of a shared ideal, or what should be a shared ideal, you are destroying it for someone else.

People live together and share things in common to have “community.” I have yet to see any Intentional Community, however well intentioned in it's inception, be much more than bastions of legalism, control and generally wrong-headed thinking.

Or some decide to have one kid of event and not another at church to foster “community” (even though some may prefer the other type of event.) An example might be like this:

"Let's have quieter music at our meals instead of louder music, because Susie can't handle loud volumes."

"But the louder music is only once a month. Can't Susie go to a different meal during that week? Escpecially sinc esome peol;e prefer the louder groups."

"But if she has to leave for one week, that will harm our purpose of community."

Hmmm... perhaps Susie and the other places she could go would benifit from her "communing" elswhere for one week?

Or in another example, people might “reply all” to email messages (and as a result others not wanting it get flooded with unwanted emails) so they can feel like they are in “community.” (That’s why God made chatrooms, people! :])

And then there's the frequent referrences to "Community Salvation" in Christian beleifs, as opposed to "Individual Slavation" -as in Christian beleif. (If you have never encountered it and don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself blessed.) I have yet to find anyone who can articulate what that means. Probably because those who use it don't have a clue themselves!

"Communion" is the root word of Community, and here I think the Catholic Church and various Quaker groups have it right: Communion is essantially found in the presecene of God. The Catholics believe the elements of bread and wine are necessary for there to be Communion, the Quakers forsake those elements and insist we have all the Communion we need by coming together in the prescene of God. Either way they agree on one thing: God being present, not the best laid plans of mice and men, is what consititues "commun-ity."

And that's really the heart of my gripe, here. We go a long ways in getting off track by insisting this or that should or shouldn't be here in the name of comminuty, which realy is another name, IMHO, for "man-made institution."

Or we can just go by what Jesus said:

Matt. 18: 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

That’ really all that’s necessary, and I have to ask: why bother with anything more? You will never have the fellowship & unity that you have in Christ by implementing rules to mecahnically foster “community” elsewhere.