man of courage steps forward to do the right thing

"A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies."...

jimmy carter, world diplomat


nobel peace laureate, former president of the united states, founder of the carter center and jimmy carter work project with habitat for humanity

An Empty Lapel Puzzles Empty Heads

All elections turn on trivia. This is because our corporate elites are able to frame the message with the cooperation of their media lackeys. So it was that Obama’s empty lapel became an issue. Why isn’t he wearing a flag pin?

There are certain things Americans expects from their candidates, and one of them is a crippled patriotism based on greed and exploitation as symbolized by a flag pin in the lapel. It is a patriotism of bile that appeals to the basest instincts of the nation. It is a patriotism that builds walls along its borders, joining the other wall builders of the world. (The Soviet Union started the practice in Berlin; both America and Israel have made an art form of it.)

The lapel pin signifies the patriotism of the scoundrel who uses his patriotism as cover for his efforts to undercut the freedoms that have made America so problematic to our political and corporate elite.

This is the patriotism that has given us the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. It is the patriotism that has made torture a household word and has brought out all that is ugly and vile in the American psyche.

The flag pin the scoundrel wears in his lapel is a flag soaked in the urine of tyranny and oppression. Its red stripes are the blood of the innocent women and children who have sacrificed their lives so America could flex its military muscle.

Obama’s empty lapel tells the truth, and it is time we paid attention.

AMERICA=TYRANNY (CARLIN on education)

"The Band's Visit," a film for peace

The Arab-Israeli conflict is complicated. Even calling it "the Arab-Israeli conflict" provokes questions. After countless debates, peace deals, brokered then broken cease-fires, and even a road map; it seems only fitting that a seemingly apolitical movie would make such a strong political statement against the ridiculous behavior of leaders on both sides.

It's films like Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit that keep my belief in humanity strong. The opening tagline announces, "Once-not long ago-a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this...It wasn't that important." Only, as the film goes on to explain, it is "unimportant" events like this that shape who we are and how we act. The story begins just as the police band from Alexandria is being dropped off at an Israeli airport. Decked out in sky blue military-style uniforms, they are by no means keeping a low profile. They even get their picture taken in a hilarious opening scene that sets the stage for the many awkward moments to come. (The camera work is brilliant- every shoulder shrug, facial twitch, and uncomfortable silent moment is captured completely unpretentiously, something many "indie" films can't seem to figure out.) The band was invited to play at the Arab Cultural Center in Petah Tiqwa, but when a P gets mistaken for a B, they end up in a lonely desert town where the only entertainment appears to be a roller disco that has a very eastern European feel to it. With the next bus a day away, and little to no Israeli money, they are forced to rely on the kindness of complete strangers. Complete strangers that they, of course, are expected to hate. Dina, played wonderfully by the absolutely beautiful Ronit Elkabetz, runs a restaurant on the edge of town where the band, led by "the general" Tawfiq, played perfectly by Israeli actor Sasson Gabai, stops to ask for directions. When it becomes clear that they are in the wrong place, and stuck for the night, Dina makes arrangements for the band to stay at various locations across town. Tawfiq, at first a bit reluctant, agrees to stay and ends up at Dina's place.

During the course of the film, I felt as if I knew the characters. I related to their hopes, desires, flaws, painful regrets, and I felt the underlying awareness of the political situation they all felt and were forced to deal with. Dina is tough and fiercely independent on the outside, but is deeply depressed and substitutes sex for love. Tawfiq is strict, especially with the womanizing Haled, but really views himself as a father figure to the youngest officer. Tawfiq's second in command lacks the self-esteem to finish his clarinet concerto, but is inspired by a stranger's advice and infant child. There is a scene at the roller disco that is, for lack of a better word, adorable. If it doesn't move you, you have no pulse. The film is full of subplots, each adding to the development and fascinatingly complex depth of the characters.

In a better world Tawfiq and Dina could expand on their shared moments, but for various obvious reasons, that are no fault of their own, this isn't an option. It may not be an option now, but as The Band's Visit makes abundantly clear, a better world is possible.

The God Who Wasn't There

Health Care That Can Never Be Taken Away

Immokalee farmworkers and their allies challenge Burger King...

This also came to my mailbox this morning...

In just 4 days, on April 28th, Immokalee farmworkers and their allies will
be delivering tens of thousands of petition signatures to Burger King
Headquarters in Miami.

You can still add your name and voice to this historic
campaign by clicking here today: http://fairfoodnation.org/petition

For the past two months, individuals and organizations have been collecting signatures in their own communities -- from elementary school children in Denver to U.S. senators in the shadow of the Capitol building -- all to send a powerful message to Burger King and the rest of the food industry that it's time for them to take responsibility for the abysmal working conditions of the farmworkers who pick their tomatoes.

For a complete listing of all the latest petition campaign news, visit http://www.ciw-online.org/2008_Petitions/news.html and http://sfalliance.org/

And as everyone in Immokalee prepares for the trip down to Miami, there's still time to collect a few more signatures! If you haven't already, please take a moment to
forward the petition to your family, friends and co-workers and invite them to
add their voice to thousands of others from around the country -- and the world
-- in demanding justice for farmworkers. A form to forward the petition can be
found at: http://www.fairfoodnation.org/petitionthanks

Together, we can tell Burger King that the human rights crisis in its tomato supply chain must end, and it must end today!

-- Marc Rodrigues
Student/Farmworker Alliance
(239) 292-3431
http://sfalliance.org/
http://ciw-online.org/
http://allianceforfairfood.org/

School of the Amerikkkas Watch April Fast Info...

I can't actually fast. I have an energetic six year old to support and guide plus a fatty 22 month old to breastfeed. So, I will content myself with spreading the information and asking for support for a cause that I think is probably being overlooked what with the eyes of the world being fixed on the Middle East and China's oppressive occupation of Tibet. Note: This is not me trying to enforce a hierarchy of causes. This is me just trying to contribute as best as I can to attention being paid to all sources of imperialist occupation and terror. I can barely keep track. But I hold the various bits of information in my head with as much dedication as I can muster.

Thousands Now Fasting Around the Worldby SOA Watch

On Wednesday, April 23 SOA Watch activists around the world launched this years' April Fast. Thousands are hungry for justice and are gathering together in community and in individual reflection to call for the closure of the School of the Americas/Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation. Vigils, marches and street theater, film fests and group or individual fasts are being held in places like Ghana; Oaxaca, Mexico; Susquehanna, PA, and cities all over the United States. Together we are weaving a fabric of resistance to US imperialism in Latin America enforced by SOA/WHINSEC-violence. Join us! Click here to find folks organizing fasts and events in your area, and please let us know how your experiences and events are going by sending an e-mail with photos and reports of your events to info(at)soaw(dot)org or calling us at 202-234-3440.

...

11th Hour

The long awaited 11th Hour DVD finally arrived from NETFLIX in my mailbox last week. I've had this in my Saved DVD Queue, like forever it seems; well, at least since I heard he had made this documentary. He would be Leonard DiCaprio, of course.

Here's the trailer, for those of you who've lived under a rock for the past year ~ smile.

Now, most people will talk to you about the most beautiful scenery/children dying or the famous people all talking about the doom and gloom of our climate changing us into fried cheese.

I, on the other hand, want to talk about the very end of the DVD ~ where people talk about the root social causes and ta-da ~ solutions to those real underlying problems we are all facing.

It was so fascinating to me that I did something I almost never do - I rewound just the last few minutes of the DVD to hear what they had to say ~ again.

Words like changing social structure and co-existing with each other so we can better take care of our Mother Earth, were spoken at the tail end of the film. They struck me very powerfully, as these are the very words I would like to hear in mainstream media.

Ya know, we do get it. The theme of losing our ozone layer and frying us like a crisp piece of bacon has been repeated over and over again every time Climate change or Global Warming or Global Cooling or what ever set of words you want to use to describe this place, this time we are living in.

But doesn't someone else besides me want to know something besides the what is happening and the how to be 'more' green'??? BTW ~ I'm so green it's coming out my pores ~ smile.

Like does anyone want to know the WHY, since I was a child and played outside all day, ate mud pies and drank from the hose; we got to this predicament of plastic bottled water, disinfectant white homes and baby/children stalkers everywhere?

Is our future really a Fear-based society with lost connections to our roots, making TV reality show participants more important than our next-door neighbors or extended families?

So People, like this review says ~ we have HOPE! And now for those of you shaking your heads and saying, "Az that's just not so.", I'd have to say YES IT IS! It doesn't matter who won the primaries or secondaries, we can have what ever we want in our lives. Yes, we can and I, for one, refuse to take on this fear; to where we are driven to hide under rocks and not ever get to meet our next-door neighbors because we are told they might be serial killers. Point blank, I refuse.

And the reasons I refuse are three. My grandchildren, the most adorable kids on earth ~ says this proud NaNa. But not only for them, for their play mates and classmates and friends and all the tiny perfect children being born right now. We can't buckle down and believe this fear bull-shit thrown at us from every media source. We must be strong and turn it off; either physically by turning off the boob-tube or emotionally by looking in the mirror and telling ourselves how beautiful we are and the world that surrounds us. We must be strong for the next generation and bring them up like we were to, to love our fellow human being - like we love ourselves. We should smile at our neighbors and the grocery clerk; get off our damn cell phones for one minute to acknowledge the person working for less than minimum wage right in front of our face.

Hope my friends ~ hope is what I leave you with!

Now ~ go and pay it forward to at least three people!

Hugs and Peace!

HAPPY BELATED EARTHDAY!

With the duel going on between Obama & Clinton being "all the rage" and such, I was caught a bit off guard to the fact that yesterday was EARTH DAY. My favorite planet, by the way. Hell! The best planet in the whole of the universe! Even never having traveled to another I can say that unequivocally, yet not based on any exploration of other worlds. I know, to say otherwise might seem foolish, but it’s not the same as declaring, “America is the greatest country on EARTH!” especially when those uttering the words have never been outside of her borders, save for maybe Canada! This isn’t to say that their assessment of America is wrong, necessarily, it's just to say that they’re only guessing. Uttering the words and doing something to make sure it stays the “greatest country” on EARTH are two very different animals. It would, I imagine, be more apt to exclaim, “EARTH is the greatest planet in the universe!” even though we’ll likely never have the opportunity to find out first hand. It may well be a silly, if not a rather odd thing to say, but surely more appropriate... considering.

BELATED EARTHDAY!

Oh. Sorry. I seem to be losing my train of thought and the screaming of BELATED EARTHDAY is my muses way of scaring the shit out of me because she thinks it’s funny… You see, she, my muse, told me that she would not participate in this particular post because, as she said, and I quote, “It’s stupid”, end quote….

Where was I?

BELATED EARTHDAY!

Oh. Yes. …Pardon the late notice, but betmo's post was on Tuesday, which was EARTH DAY, so I had to hold my tongue until today here on the revamped association of The Tree.

Before I continue with the BELATED EARTHDAY post I want to let everyone know that by "revamped association of the Tree" I mean I’ve made a rather sweeping change to the contributor list of this blog. I narrowed it down to only seven contributors. This was mainly due to the fact that it was a bit difficult to know when and if anyone was going to post anything, my fault of course, and couple that with the fact that when no one posted a thing for days my little pea-brain didn't fill the yawning void. Well, since yesterday was EARTH DAY, I decided it was time to put “The Tree” in order. (Those that are no longer on the sidebar are still- VERY- thank you, muse- valuable contributors to the blogosphere.) It was just inevitable that it came down to the seven, who, to my astonished pleasure, still found it in their hearts to post on a blog that had long lost its stability since I took over the reigns.

Inevitable you say? Yes. That and I very much like the number 7!

There are 7 days in a week.
7 is (supposedly) a lucky number.
7 is the 3rd Lucas prime number
and I was a third child
and my last name is Prime.
7 is the only number less than 15 which cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers!

Did you know that 7, in the English language, is the only 2-syllable natural, positive 1-digit number? Well don’t feel bad. I hadn’t a clue.

I did know, however, that a group or a series of 7 is a heptad.

How on EARTH could I know something like that when I flunked Algebra and EARTH Science?

I know this because my family, when I was very young, traveled to attend our cousin’s annual barbeque in Kansas City, Missouri. While we were there my very dear Aunt Clementine, who had an odd habit of sucking on ice cubes, was telling everybody gathered around the picnic table about the history behind her lawn ornament collection of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Apparently, according to my dear Aunt Clementine who never told a lie in her life, she had bought the yard ornaments at a garage sale in Memphis from a man named Elvis Presley. Dear Aunt Clementine was a real piece of work. Anyway... she was sucking on a couple of big cubes of ice as she talked and was keeping an eye on my cousin Tad who was rearranging the ornaments into a more symmetrical fashion around Snow White, when he accidently knocked Dopey over and Dopey fell with a thwack against Sneezy. My Aunt Clementine nearly feinted! She turned to my Uncle Chester and with a mouth full of ice yelled, “Chester, go heptad with my dwarfs!”

What better way to segue into the original topic of this post- BELATED EARTHDAY!

EARTH. Yes. You know, that oft overlooked third planet from the sun which has an orbit that is 149,600,000 km from the sun and a diameter of 12,756.3 km with a mass of 5.972e24 kg? Whoooo! Somebody throw water on me quick!

Did you know that EARTH is the only planet whose English name doesn’t derive from Greek slash Roman mythology? Yip... It derives its name from the Old English and the Germanic. Go figure. There are, of course, hundreds of other names for EARTH in other languages. Terra. Pamint. Id-Dinja. Erde. Jorden. Maa. Zeme. Föld. Dedamizha. Prithivi. Eretz. Honua. Jeegoo. Papatuānuku. Lefatshe. Telluric. Lok.

Either way you spin it, in any language, EARTH remains our one and only home. With that in mind, don't you think we should take better care of it? I mean if your house has a leaky roof you patch it up as fast as possible before it comes to raining cats and dogs, right?

I always wondered where that particular phrase, “It’s raining cats and dogs” originated, so I did a web search and the first link I hit gave me the answer I sought!

"We use this idiom to say that it is (or was) raining very heavily. (It doesn't mean that cats and dogs are falling out the sky!) "

Ain’t the internets grand?

BELATED EARTHDAY!

Did you know that in Roman Mythology, the goddess of the EARTH was Tellus - the fertile soil from the Greek, Gaia, terra mater - Mother EARTH?

Did you know that it was not until the time of Copernicus (the sixteenth century!) that it was understood that the EARTH is just another planet? Yip... Whew! Shore does seem that way back when, unlike today, people were awfully gull durned ignurnt!

In closing… I leave you with some of my favorite EARTHY quotes-

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.
Rabindranath Tagore

This planet is not terra firma. It is a delicate flower and it must be cared for. It's lonely. It's small. It's isolated, and there is no resupply. And we are mistreating it.
Scott Carpenter, astronaut

The earth laughs at him who calls a place his own.
Hindustani Saying

Hear that?
thepoetryman

That’s all I’ve got on my Belated Earth Day post. Say good night, muse...

OBAMA!

Oh! Yes! One last thing…

The following piece is my MoveOn.org BARACK OBAMA Video Contest entry. If you like it please follow this link and vote. While you're at it, and while you're on the vote page, you will see the video html emed code and the link code, please place the link code on your site for your visitors and if they are inclined to vote for it they can do so via the page that follows and it will count extra toward my video's chances of winning. There are 1,100 videos entered in the contest! Yikes! By the way... the incredible artwork you see in the video was rendered by none other than my dear friend and associate, Ben Heine.

i surrender

yep- put a fork in me- i am done. i am giving in and just living and let live. i can't fight it anymore- the elitist in me has decided that i will acquiesce to the 1/3 of the american people who really think that another clinton in the white house will be what this country needs after 8 years of neo cons; to the 1/3 of the american public who will vote for mccain for reasons i just can't wrap my mind around. minorities in this country are not well received- apparently, not even by each other as evidenced by the nasty campaign that hillary clinton has waged against barack obama. the people who are clinton supporters think bowling and lapel pins are the merit of how well a president can do their job. they just want to feel good about themselves that they aren't voting mccain. i posted an editorial from philly highlighting why clinton should just go somewhere. unfortunately for me, that would be back here to new york. sigh. i think i would rather be elitist because at least i have critical thinking skills. no, the 2/3 who will vote for mccain and clinton can't really see the bigger picture because they don't really want change. they want to go back iin time to when they could consume and live without having to face the reality of global climate change; starving people around the world; and the fact that we are no longer a democratic republic.

i mean seriously, am i the only one who sees? the fact that the top neo cons in the bush regime have taken up positions in our institutions of higher learning and media outlets? john yoo at berkeley; karl rove at fox; bill kristol at nyt, and most recently- tony snow at cnn. let's not forget murdoch and zell named to board of directors at associated press. so, the head neo cons are controlling mass media and have put laws in place that permanently circumvent civil liberties in the name of protecting against possibly, maybe, perhaps, someday another terrorist attack- and no says a thing. propaganda machine anyone? but no- the sheeple are busy throwing barbs at each other within the democratic party while watching our country and our planet burn.

and i feel like a stranger in my own country.

especially when i read articles like the one my buddy jim sent to me:

soaring food prices elicit creative solutions

and my eyes bulge in absolute shock and awe at the fact that ingenuity involves not buying name brands and eating at home. yeah. i didn't know what to say. how far into yourself and how far removed from the rest of the planet can you be to think that way. but hey- there are some things some folks won't skimp on- bottled water. i almost lost my shit. america is directly responsible for most of the world's issues- through our corporatocracy and corrupt governmental policies- for decades! and going without your own personal milk and cereal as a sacrifice to your kids- makes you feel like a million bucks. yeah.

this elitist has had it. there isn't anything i can find worth fighting for. global climate change is here; people are starving and dying from no water; people in this country have lost their jobs, their homes, their cars- and we have people so fixated on whether or not barack obama can bowl- that the folks in power have free reign- and they know it. so- i am throwing in the towel and i am going to garden and can and do what i can to be as self sufficient as i can be- and put my brain power into how to protect what i do. because the mental midgets who are out there bickering over an election that is pretty meaningless- would be the first to try and take what isn't theirs. these are some of my fellow americans in action:

real 911 calls

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the brown
house on the corner.
Dispatcher: Do you have an address?
Caller: No, I have on a blouse and slacks, why?

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham
and cheese sandwich .
Dispatcher: Excuse me?
Caller: I made a ham and cheese sandwich and left it on the kitchen
table and when I came back from the bathroom, someone had
taken a bite out of it.
Dispatcher: Was anything else taken?
Caller: No, but this has happened to me before and I'm sick and tired
of it!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency?
Caller: I'm trying to reach nine eleven but my phone doesn't have
an eleven on it.
Dispatcher: This is nine eleven.
Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one?
Dispatcher: Yes, ma'am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same
thing.
Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I'm not stupid.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What's the nature of your emergency?
Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two
minutes apart
Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1
Caller: Yeah, I'm having trouble breathing. I'm all out of breath.
Darn....I think I'm going to pass out.
Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?
Caller: I'm at a pay phone. North and Foster.
Dispatcher: Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?
Caller: No.
Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble
breathing?
Caller: Running from the Police.

Confessions of a Renegade Christian

The Poetry Man has asked me to post something on Monday's. What follows is an article I am preparing for The Smirking Chimp. The next couple of Monday's will be iffy. On May 2, I am joining 214 other singers at Carnegie Hall for a performance of Verdi's Requiem. Life should return to normal after the 2nd. --cw




Two points must be understood before we begin. First, as the title states, I am a renegade Christian. Like Barak Obama and Bill Moyers, I belong to the United Church of Christ (UCC), a delightfully non-creedal church that is quite tolerant of my heresies.

The second point is that, with a few exceptions, Christianity and organized religion are as oil is to water. Historically, Christianity has so much blood on its hands, it is impossible to tell where the fingers ends and the nails begin. All of this violence surfaces as soon as the church gains political power. When Church and State wed, Hell pays for the reception because the child of the union is Death.

The truth is that organized religion chokes on the teachings of Jesus. Early Christians referred to their faith at The Way. For them, the essence of this faith was internalizing Jesus’ teachings and actually living them. The Way included little annoyances like loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. (The Religious Right would have us believe that what Jesus actually said was turn the other’s cheek, with a fistful of knuckles.)

Living the Beatitudes is a pain in the ass, so it is easier for organized religion to get its knickers in a knot over evolution, same-sex marriage and sex in general.

The separation of church and state was not the brainchild of eighteenth century secular humanists. It was the creation of a clergyman, Roger Smith. The Puritans booted Smith out of Massachusetts because of his heretical beliefs. Based on his experience there and in England, Smith came to realize that nothing corrupted a religion faster than being made a state religion. Constantine destroyed The Way when he made it Rome’s official religion. So, in Smith’s view, the separation of the two was necessary to keep religion healthy and uncorrupted by the quest for political power. (The corrupted faith of the religious right becomes understandable when we remember that from the 1820s to the 1960s, a White, male-dominated Protestantism was the de facto state religion of America, and they want it back!)

The Way, once it frees itself from the corrupting influence of the state, is grounded in one of the world’s most misunderstood concepts: Christian love.

At the mention of Christian love, many people envision a white-robed maiden skipping through La-La Land with a beatific smile on her face.

It is anything but!

Christian love demands a descent into the deepest pit of Hell and a willingness to love every low-life son of a bitch one finds there, even though one’s knee-jerk reaction is to tear their freaking throats out. In Greek, Christian love is called agape and is defined as an attitude and not an emotion.

I am always amused by the religious right’s efforts to place the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Progressives missed a golden opportunity when Judge Roy Moore wanted blocks of granite with the Commandments engraved on them placed in the country’s courthouses.

What Progressives should have done was help him move the damn blocks. And when they were in place, a good Progressive would have mopped his brow, stepped back and said, “Damn, judge. Have you read these things? They’re little more than anti-capitalist tripe. Look at what they are telling us: don’t kill; don’t steal: don’t lie; don’t exploit. How in the hell can you run a multinational with this albatross around your neck? The Bible even inveighs against a return of investment!”

Being a renegade Christian means living the Tao of Christ. For the renegade, dogma is an irritant that is either shaken off or ignored. It also means understanding that the Bible is a repository of spiritual, not literal truth. As one contemporary theologian put it, “Everything in the Bible is true; some of it actually happened.” Such an approach is difficult for Americans because most of us are raised to be technicians. (I define technician to include everyone from a neurosurgeon to the front-end specialist at your local Buick dealer.)

The mantras we are brought up with are:

· Say what you mean!
· Get to the point!
· Don’t beat around the bush!

One word, one meaning, that was the doctrine we absorbed. Consequently, we choke on metaphors. So, when confronted with the Bible, it is an either/or choice: either it is all literally true, or it is all hokum. For the technician who believes, the Bible is a technical manual, and like all such manuals, it must be followed to the letter.

To the renegade Christian, God is the ground of Being whose qualities we will never know. Metaphorically, we might speak of Her as a person, but we run into trouble when we literalize that metaphor. God is too busy creating to “bless” anything, especially America (though such a belief is helpful if there are some natives to be slaughtered).

And, no! I am not one of those Christians who believe God is going to bail us out of the mess we’ve created simply because She gave us dominion over nature. According to the Bible, humanity’s dominion was brief; it lasted until Eve went apple picking. If you read God’s curse on Adam and Eve (Genesis, 3:14-19), it is obvious that humanity is stripped of its dominion and becomes just another derivative species.

God only promised Noah no more floods because the flood punished the earth and the earth was innocent (Genesis, 8:21). She said nothing about protecting us from self annihilation. The next Messiah could very well be a cockroach.

Nor was dominion restored to humanity after the flood. All God said was, “The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth…” (Genesis, 9:2).

Granted, God has entered into numerous covenants with humanity. But the covenants were only in force as long as humanity loved God, didn’t kill, didn’t steal, didn’t lie and didn’t exploit.

The life span of the average Covenant can be measured in nanoseconds.

We are knee deep in an era of bile. These days, Christian love is too often extruded on a spittle spray of rage. There is anger, uncertainty and hard times. And yes, there is a lot of bitterness, despite the facile boosterism of our leaders. These same leaders, aided and abetted by a compliant media, would have us project this anger on those with skins darker than ours, be they immigrants or terrorists.

For the past sixty-plus years, fear and paranoia have driven America’s policies, both foreign and domestic. According to our leaders and their media lapdogs, danger lurks everywhere: in the food we eat, the air we breathe and the second-hand smoke we inhale, not to mention a multitude of germs, bacteria and exotic diseases. America, they tell us, is constantly under siege, first by commies and now by Islamofascist terrorists.

The first order of business for Progressives must be to challenge this atmosphere of fear and trembling. Those of us who dissent from our national paranoia must find the spiritual strength to stand up and proclaim that there is nothing to fear. For myself, I draw my strength from The Tao of the Christ, and from the Liberation Theology of Latin America. This is not for everybody, nor should it be. But it could well be that at some future date; it will be missionaries from Latin America who will teach us how to live a life in harmony with creation.

Tragically, there is no guarantee we will listen.

WILL IT NEVER END?

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY!

Beltway sources tell Big Head DC that former Bush administration Press Secretary Tony Snow will make his debut on CNN tomorrow night during coverage of the Pennsylvania primary.

ANTI-TORTURE PRESIDENT TOP TEN

This was my entry in the Human Right's First Anti-torture contest of
Top Ten Signs We Finally Have an Anti-Torture President
~
# 10
We the people no longer have the dreadful sensation that we’re drowning.

# 9
The parallels with Nixon’s administration and the Vietnam war no longer apply.

# 8
Knee-jerk terror alerts become passé.

# 7
The sequel to the movie “Rendition” is canceled due to its implausibility.

#6
Seeing the vice president on the news doesn’t scare the kids.

# 5
“Gitmo” becomes, “No Larry, No Curly, and No Moe”!

# 4
It’s two-thousand and nine!

# 3
The president is seen reading a book and it isn’t a photo-op.

# 2
The president pronounces it like its spelled- “nuclear”.

And the # 1 sign
that we finally have an Anti-Torture President;

“Withdrawal” and “pull out” are no longer considered dirty words.

~

You can go here to see the winner of the "top-ten contest"

chosen by Human Rights First "end torture campaign"...

MUST SEE SUNDAY SERMON

I'm A Member of Moveon.org & A Terrible Bowler

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February:

“Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

You can read their entire post by clicking here where audio of Senator Clinton’s remarks is also provided. I’m hardly the first blogger to post about this and surely won’t be the last. Many across the progressive blogosphere venting about Clinton’s rhetorical cluster bomb against the Democratic Party’s activist base are far more articulate than me. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to hit back on behalf of this movement I proudly call my own.

I first became aware of Moveon.org when they stood up for the Constitution and supported censure over impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky scandal a decade ago. I was delighted such a movement sprang from the toxic bile of Ken Starr’s witch-hunt. Do you remember Senator Clinton how we advocated for censure as a means of “moving on”?

We were your allies against the racist and misogynist “right wing conspiracy” represented by Richard Mellon Scaife that you now sit down with to exploit racial divisions. So to paraphrase James Carville, attacking us is “an act of betrayal” that resembles Judas. Anyway, that was the beginning of the netroots movement.

After 9/11 Moveon.org was an oasis in a dessert of reactionary enablers that included Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the Iraq War. Sadly, Clinton even echoed the administration’s lies about connections between Saddam Hussein and al quaeda! Not only did Clinton fail to read contrary arguments about weapons of mass destruction in the mere ninety page National Intelligence Estimate, she also on the Senate floor said this on October 10, 2002:

“He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.”

Well, nice that Clinton said “apparently no evidence’ about Saddman and 9/11 but she implied there might be and the rest of the statement was an outright lie. Yet the only contrition Clinton expressed for years was “if I only knew then what I know now” while her Senate colleagues from 2002 Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and John Kerry eventually redeemed themselves for their transgressions by honestly acknowledging their mistakes. Clinton couldn’t even do that until recently and yes that angered Moveon.org members like me.

Furthermore, Clinton lied about Moveon’s “opposition” to Afghanistan. Indeed she was echoing Karl Rove propaganda about the Democrats and Afghanistan. There was no organized opposition to America’s response in Afghanistan by Moveon.org. Speaking for myself, I knew there had to be a military response to 9/11 but for damn sure I didn’t trust the Bush Administration to do it skillfully and retain the international community’s good will. And yes I worried about the loss of innocent life, largely women and children, who would lose their lives while nothing was accomplished. Sadly, that is what has come to pass.

Moveon.org members are my brothers and sisters. Fellow patriots and activists mobilized to reverse America’s homicidal/suicidal foreign policy and grotesque erosion of civil liberties. They represent the core of the people powered social networking netroots movement determined to make America the best America it can be. It’s rather like a large extended virtual family that has moved beyond Moveon.org and is really a decentralized community. We coordinate to raise money, phone bank and canvass on behalf of causes larger than ourselves.

Like all families, individual members of Moveon.org and the netroots as a whole don’t always agree about tactics or which candidates to support. For example, I didn’t think the “Betraus” ad last fall was very smart. Previously, I had intense email debates with other bloggers about my support for John Edwards. I had posted a heartfelt endorsement of Edwards and some Obama supporters I enjoyed email correspondences with over the years hit me hard.

On the bigger picture though we’re on the same side even as squabbles happen over how to best achieve the objectives we share. Once Edwards dropped out I put my disappointment aside because I sensed Obama’s candidacy better represented the sensibilities of this movement I’m a part of than Clinton.

I also hunger for our netroots movement to achieve critical mass beyond white liberal computer literate activists to better combine with organized labor and more effectively fight on behalf of wage earners. We're making substantial progress in that direction as the movement has grown so fast. And yet not fast enough. Hence, it’s easy to become frustrated.

But Moveon’s movement is my movement and I’m in it for the long haul no matter what happens in 2008. The netroots people powered movement is fighting to take the Democratic Party from predatory moneylenders, warmongers and corporatists and push our country towards progressive reform. A tough ongoing struggle waged against powerful interests.

These interests include the incestuous relationship between the corporate media and the military industrial complex as exists between NBC and General Electric. And if you think the recent performance of moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous during the Clinton/Obama debate and the perverse reactionary values of ABC’s parent company Walt Disney are a coincidence, I have bridge in my hometown of Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Senator Clinton’s whining about activists like myself who are informed, passionate and motivated to fight the madness that war mongering enablers like her supported is quite revealing. Her whining about funds raised online “like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," is even more revealing. Clinton receives contributions by the banks and credit card companies “like a gusher” and supported predatory bankruptcy legislation in 2001. Big money contributors that support Senator Clinton benefit from laws that destroy the lives of families on the financial abyss whenever a loved one suffers from an expensive medical calamity.

Moveon.org’s money doesn’t come from insurance companies, HMOs, Halliburton, Bechtel, BlackWater USA, K-Street lobbyists, banks, credit card companies or other war mongering corporatist predators. Hence, this “gusher of money” is beyond the comprehension of Clinton and Washington insiders such as James Carville. This money comes from regular folks giving what they can even as we too struggle with our groceries bill, energy costs and mortgages. Yet they call us elitists?

There is also the lie about our “intimidating” her supporters at caucuses. Listen up: I subscribe to something Howard Dean has said many times, that it would be far better for this country to have 100% voter turnout even if Republicans win. I’ve registered all kinds of people to vote who don’t share my beliefs and so have many dedicated activists who also belong to Movon.org and make our voices heard in the progressive blogosphere.

I don’t own a gun or attend religious services. Nor do I wear a flag pin. Neither does military veteran and Virginia Senator James Webb. I’m also not a good bowler. Admittedly, I am “bitter” about the direction of my country. But I’m as good an American as you are Senator Clinton. And yes I’m a member of Moveon.org and will give another $25 to Senator Obama today. Anyone care to join me and help raise money like a gusher? If so, click here..

RETIREMENT PLANNING FOR 2008

Case Wagenvoord of Open Letters to George W. Bush from his ardent admirer, Belacqua Jones sent me this and I thought I'd share it...

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one
year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the
original $1000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00
left.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines
stock you would have $49.00 left

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer
one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the
cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, You would
have had $214.00.

Based on this analysys, the best current investment
advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the
401-Keg Plan!

TORTURE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

Ask Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama to join us in calling on Secretary of State Rice to resign. Sign the petition now!

IRAN IRAN IRAN IRAN IRAN IRAN

Crocker Stresses Iraqi Progress, Iranian Influence
Bang boom and a rata tat tat!
Listen for the drums in that,
Bang boom and a rata tat tat!
Strip away the strings and brass,
Bang boom and a rata tat tat!
Now listen for the drums in that.

~
RESET COORDINATES TO ZERO HOUR:

The birds have thus gone silent in the gray sky,
Nothing flies between this life and this death;
Solid ground and space and breathing flesh;
Naught hovers now but the murderous device.

Latitude 33 modify to latitude 35.
20 minutes north alter to 45.

Horror fails even our most tested imagination,
Thus we’ll not sense our own fluttering demise
Caught then, perched, set to firmly plunge
The feet, landing unhappily, upon the blade.

Longitude 44 change to 51.
24 minutes east to 45.

Only in catastrophe does hush go unnoticed,
As the smallest gasp of the smallest possible breath,
Only in the inescapable horror-show do they enter
Exhaling through our dreadful sinking exactness.

Lock and load! Goddamnit! Now drop that shell!
Let’s bang some brown flesh to everlasting hell!
Over a billion barrels of bobbing death await
Silent in the gray sky, zero hour knell!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Cheney, Oil, and Al Qaeda

Zeitgeist

Another video to watch

Until Google removes it!

peace my friends, peace!

ENDLESS WAR ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN

This video makes it clear:

No matter what happens in Iraq, the Bush Administration and John McCain always have the same answer...

Is Google Gate Keeping in America?

Could it be that Google is now practicing the gate keeping it perfected in the People’s Republic of China?

For some years I have been publishing a blog, Open Letters to George W. Bush, purportedly written by one Belacqua Jones who is best described as a Karl Rove on meth. In the blog, I criticize our rogue administration by praising it to the high heavens.

Last December, I began posting at Google’s Blogspot. Monday, I received an e-mail from Google’s subsidiary, Blogger, notifying me that the blog “has been identified as a potential spam blog” and that, “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

In normal times, it would be easy to dismiss this as an annoying glitch. Unfortunately, we are not living normal times.

The National Security Council (NSC) is busily monitoring electronic traffic without the benefit of FISA warrants. We have an administration that has a zero tolerance for dissent. Couple that with Google’s history of blocking sites in China, and one begins to wonder. (When Google formed Google.cn in order to penetrate the Chinese market, it agreed to remove “certain sensitive information” from its search results.)

Hopefully, this is simply what it appears to be, a computer program run amok. But it is a commentary on the sorry state of our democratic republic that what might be a simple glitch takes on some rather frightening proportions.

Of course, it is possible, that my blog does qualify as spam. Google claims that spam blogs are characterized by their “irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text.”

No doubt my blog is irrelevant to the shrinking minority that still loves Bush. It is repetitive because when writing about the Bush administration I keep falling back on gastrointestinal metaphors. And I confess the text is nonsensical at times because I enjoy twisting syntax and riding rough-shod over the rules of grammar in order to create the voice and point of view one would find in a stoned political consultant.

Oh God!

Could it be?

Am I really guilty of posting Subversive Spam?

Google claims it uses an “Automated spam classifying algorithm” to screen for spam posts.

Is this the same algorithm the NSC uses? The next time I try to pass through airport security, will I be bumped because my name popped up on a Subversive Spammer No-Fly list?

Those of you who are in the mood for some subversive spam are welcome to visit my site at http://belacquajones.blogspot.com/. It’s still up even though I am still unable to post on it.

Maybe if I started wearing a flag lapel pin…

Crunch Time In America: An Interview With Economist Jared Bernstein

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal on April 6th and x-posted today at The Wild Wild Left, The Peace Tree, The Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

How many economists have you read or watched on television in recent years that claimed the economy was performing well while you struggled to make ends meet and keep up with the cost of living? Indeed, until recently a happy talk virus had infected a cabal of conservative plutocrats who preached the virtues of limited regulation, market forces and free trade as wages declined and predatory lenders had a party. It seemed we were hearing conservative politicians and their mouthpieces at the Heritage Foundation or Fox news refer to the economy as “the greatest story never told” at every opportunity.

Now that the housing and credit crisis has metastasized, conservative apparatchiks are fighting to minimize government intervention on behalf of regular folks while preserving corporate welfare. They accuse anyone who raises a fuss of waging class warfare. Instead these agents of the status quo prefer we erroneously obsess about Social Security going bust and agree to privatize it for Wall Street's benefit.

Thankfully, renowned economist and the director of the Living Standards Program for the Economic Policy Institute, Jared Bernstein is using his megaphone to fight the madness. With his new book, Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Economic Mysteries), Bernstein responds to dozens of questions asked by working Americans that relate to the dollars and cents concerns of real people. Bernstein who often appears as a commentator on CNBC wrote in the preface of his book that,

“I’m tired of being stuck in the studio engaging in rants with Darth Vaders with PhDs. Wouldn’t it be more useful to have an open-ended, rant-free dialogue with real, everyday people about their economic questions.”

With Crunch, Bernstein effectively validates the daily experience of working people struggling to keep up in a treadmill economy. He also adroitly writes with accessible prose and powerful anecdotes to both educate readers about economic nuances and empower them to influence politics in a more populist direction. Bernstein contends that the rich and powerful have as much influence on who benefits from the economy as the will of the market. He therefore hopes to inspire readers not to cede any more ground to the practitioners of hyper individualism at the expense of the American community.

One of the most memorable anecdotes in Bernstein’s book describes how Circuit City announced it planned to lay off 3,400 sales associates in the spring of 2007 in order to appease their shareholders. Bernstein utilized this anecdote to illustrate how corporate greed is both heartless and self-defeating:

“Talk about in-your face management. I can absolutely see why a firm whose stock was down by a third over the past year would decide to make some big changes. But unless your workforce is truly overpaid, replacing a big chunk of it with lower-paid workers is a recipe for lousier service, fewer sales, and lower profits. At the time, many predicted that after the initial jump, stock prices would sink further. We were wrong, though. They never got that initial bump, and the stock just kept sliding, down 15 percent a few months later (while the overall stock market was up strong).”

It’s that kind of prose that led former North Carolina Senator and populist presidential candidate John Edwards to issue the following praise:

“Jared Bernstein’s new book is a must read for everyone who cares about restoring economic fairness in an America with the greatest income inequality since the Great Depression. Drawing on everyday examples, Crunch is an accessible explanation of economic principles presented with equal parts of insight, humor, and stimulation. In the process, Bernstein explains how we got to where we are, what to do to fix it, and why fighting for a fair society is so important.”

An expert on issues of labor and income inequality, he frequently testifies on Capitol Hill. Bernstein is also the co-author of eight editions of The State of Working America and he posts frequently on Josh Marshall’s blog, TPM Café. Longtime readers/listeners of the Intrepid Liberal Journal may recall an interview he did for this blog after his book, All Together Now: Common Sense For A Fair Economy was published in 2006.

Bernstein agreed to a podcast interview over the telephone about his current book and the current challenges confronting the American economy. Our conversation was approximately forty-eight minutes and among the issues covered includes the housing and credit crisis, needed regulatory reform, healthcare, globalization, Social Security, America’s investment deficit and free trade. Please refer to the "Pickle" media player below.



This interview can also be accessed for free by searching for “Intrepid Liberal Journal” on Itunes.

No shit...

NY Times...
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed that “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2003.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
(Read the full article...)

It's relatively simple.

The effects of Bush and his moneyed minions have finally begun to sink in to the rest of the country while many of us have felt this coming for six to seven years. Many of us have felt the country as a whole was in trouble after the 2000 election while others began to get that sense around September of the following year and still others sensed the coming mood in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq. It would be nice if the public had sniffed the whole affair out sooner, but they were all too busy watching, ironically, American Idol! They were busy building track houses and Wal-Mart stores and Gold's Gym and waiting on their tax cuts to buy a third home. Maybe they were distracted by the Oscars or the Grammies or gays in the military or any number of scandals in Hollywood!

In other words, “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” is a "no shit" moment.

Anti-Tank Technology

I found this must see video over on Alternate Brain