Wednesday, 31 July 2013
In yet another bombshell article, The Guardian has a piece that suggests that U.S. government spying on American citizens is even more pervasive than previously thought. Indeed, nearly everything one does online can be collected and used for whatever nefarious purpose the government bureaucrats. For all I know, I may have a dossier on me at NSA given some of my criticisms of Barack Obama and other parts of the U. S. government. Naturally, "preventing terrorism" and "national security" are the excuses thrown out to justify such pervasive spying - the same excuses used by communist dictators in China and other dictators past and present in countries around the globe. Is there any proof of this other than statements by government officials? Of course not. The information is all classified and secret. Here are article highlights:
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.Reading all of this, it really is no surprise that the lack of personal freedom from surveillance in America landed in the same category as that of Russia and China. So much for privacy and freedom from big brother watching your every move.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.
"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.
In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA.
Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media. An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
In a letter this week to senator Ron Wyden, director of national intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance. Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".
I have not yet seen the outcome of Bradley Manning's sentencing, but I continue to be sickened by the persecution of Manning by the U. S. Military and the Obama administration while those who authorized and/or committed war crimes - yes, I am talking about George Bush, Dick Cheney and a number of others - continue to go unpunished. Apparently, Barack Obama and the U.S. military have forgotten the standard that was applied at Nuremberg to those who committed similar crimes. I personally do not want to hear any more blather about American exceptionalism as long as war criminals go unpunished while whistle blowers are persecuted. A piece in Huffington Post expands on this topic. Here are highlights:
In the media world, even national security hawks like The Daily Beast's Eli Lake concede that Manning's leaks had "a lot of public benefit." But very few have argued Manning should go free.Americans wonder how the horrors of Nazi Germany came to be. If Americans do not demand that the rue f law prevail, America is well on its way towards a totalitarian government that punishes anyone who exposes its lies and worse yet, its crimes.
Did Manning break the law? According to the letter, yes he did. But since when did we presume to hold people in government accountable to the law?.
The Bush administration lied to the American people in order to justify the war crime of attacking Saddam Hussein's Iraq. That crime qualified, in the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal, as "the supreme international crime differing only from other crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Trillions of dollars and the death and suffering of millions of people were the consequences of that crime.
The Bush gang also secretly ordered warrantless surveillance of Americans' domestic communications without involving the courts, a blatant violation of both constitutional and statutory law. And don't forget the setting up of a worldwide torture regime that directly violated longstanding international law as well as domestic law, specifically a Convention against torture, passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, which specifies that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever... may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Yet, nobody but the most marginal voices in our politics ever dared to suggest the Bush administration should be prosecuted according to the letter of the law.
In the U.S., there are crimes the government approves of and those it doesn't. Contrast Bradley Manning's punishment, for example, with that of the commander in charge of the torture at Abu Ghraib. Manning was subjected to abusive detention and faces more than a hundred years in prison. Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who oversaw the brutal torment of hundreds of detainees got an $8,000 fine.
Bradley Manning's leaks revealed crimes far worse than the ones he has supposedly committed. The Collateral Murder video shows the sickening slaughter of a group of people in Iraq, including journalists and rescuers.
One State Department cable revealed to the world for the first time that U.S. special operations forces raided a house in Iraq in 2006 and summarily executed one man, four women, two children, and three infants -- all shot in the head. Although Phillip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, brought the incident to the attention of then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Bush administration failed to respond.
Manning's leaks also revealed the fact that the Obama administration colluded with the Yemeni dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh to execute a secret war without the consent of Congress and systematically lie about it. Yet Manning, who blew the whistle on this criminality, is the only one facing legal prosecution..
History, at least, will look very kindly on the actions of Bradley Manning and harshly on the crimes of the overlords he challenged. The real task is for Americans to get to the point where the country -- and its government -- is ruled by law, and not by men.
With Congress headed into summer recess and GOP House members headed back to districts where they will pander to the racists and white supremacists in the GOP base - most of whom, of course, profess to be godly Christian despite the fact that they are filled with hate towards others - pro-immigration reform groups are planning to target these GOP Congress members and perhaps convince them that doing the right thing should trump pandering to horrible people. A piece in Politico looks at the planned effort. Here are excerpts:
Outside groups plan to target more than 100 House Republicans over the August recess with an aggressive ground game aimed at persuading lawmakers to embrace immigration reform.
Their goal: prove that it’s not just Washington insiders who want a comprehensive immigration overhaul, but that conservative voters in their districts support it as well.
Father Geoff Farrow - who ran afoul of the Catholic Church hierarchy because of his support for gay rights and marriage equality - has a timely post on his blog that looks at the recent remarks by Pope Francis which some are foolishly trying to claim mark a new era for the Church's treatment of gays. Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents, Farrow concludes that NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Thus, if one is a gay Catholic, the best thing to do is head for the door. As I tell those who contact me about coming out and finding self-acceptance, only a masochist would remain in a Church that teaches that one is inherently disordered. Here are highlights from Farrow's post:
Yesterday my phone rang, it was a reporter from a news station in Fresno asking for an interview on the pope Francis’ statement on gay priests. Later, Telemundo called asking to arrange for a camera crew to interview me at home. I sighed as I poured myself a cup of coffee and then read through the statement.
Bottom line: It is a way of appearing to change everything without changing anything.Substitute the word “straight” for “gay” and you begin to see the problem; in fact, whenever an issue arises regarding gender orientation, simply do that: Substitute the word “straight” for “gay.” Does the statement still make sense?
It only makes sense if you believe that being gay is somehow disordered or defective. The official teaching of the Catholic church is precisely just that. The Official Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2357 states:Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.Here is the translation of what the pope is saying in plain English, taken directly from the Catholic Catechism:2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
Bottom line: "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." Under no circumstances can they be approved. Homosexual persons are called to chastity.
Forget whatever your sexual orientation is, could you live this way? Could you spend your entire life without intimately loving someone else? Could YOU?Catholic moral theology isolates sex as “an act” and in doing this, it thereby effectively de-humanizes sex by removing it from its natural context, i.e. a relationship.At best, Francis is signaling a gentle course correction for Catholic bishops on this issue. When you’re an infallible institution, you can’t admit you made a mistake, you can’t admit that you have been wrong. Individual lives that are ruined or destroyed are unfortunate “collateral damage” that are sacrificed for the reputation of the institution.But make no mistake, this pope’s congenial words offer ZERO relief for LGBT Catholics. They make no attempt to repair past evils inflicted on innocent people and so my advice is: leave! If you are LGBT leave the Catholic church, you can do better. If you are the parent or a family member of an LGBT person: leave! Your loved ones deserve better. If you are the parent of a child, leave! Your children absolutely deserve a healthier development. To raise an LGBT child in the Catholic church today constitutes de facto child abuse.
I totally agree with his view that raising a gay child in the Catholic Church is de facto child abuse. The same, of course, holds for the Southern Baptist Convention and other anti-gay denominations.
We hear over and over from the demagogues of the Christian Right how America was supposedly founded as a Christian Nation and/or that the Founding Fathers supported a far right Christianist approach to religion intertwining with the secular laws. Like most of what the "godly Christian" crowd says, these claims are a lie - it's yet another example of if these people's lips are moving, it's almost certain they are lying. Addicting Info has compiled 35 statements by various Founding Fathers that basically blow the "Christian nation" myth to Hell. Here is a sampling (be sure to read the full piece):
The separation of church and state is one of the cornerstones of America’s foundation. Conservative Christian fundamentalists have sought to crush this cornerstone in the hopes of establishing Christianity as the state religion, an action that would threaten the rest of the foundation that makes up the Constitution. These conservatives contend that the Founding Fathers dreamed of making America a Christian state at the expense of those who practice other religions or none at all.
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
I noted yesterday how some are either in tears or nearly wetting themselves over remarks made by Pope Francis which these wishful thinkers are interpreting to be a signal that the Roman Catholic Church is going to cease its anti-gay jihad. Today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City, threw cold water on these wishful fantasies by saying that nothing has changed and that Francis only repeated official Church positions on gays - namely, that we need to repent and be alone and celibate for the rest of our lives. Think Progress has details. Here are highlights:
Tuesday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is also the archbishop of New York, sought to downplay the Pope’s comments. During an appearance on CBS’ This Morning, Dolan insisted that the Church has long embraced gay people and that Francis’ answer did not represent a new tone or establish a more liberal precedent.
“Homosexual acts,” he said, are still a sin. “Homosexuality is not a sin, right? Homosexual acts are,” Dolan said, “just like heterosexuality is not a sin outside of marriage, that would be sinful.” “While certain acts may be wrong, [the Pope] would always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity and not judge them,” Dolan continued.
But the Cardinal hasn’t always followed his own advice and has repeatedly condemned the rights of same-sex couples under the guise of love and support for the gay community.
After lobbying against New York’s marriage equality law, Dolan prohibited by decree any Church personnel or property from being utilized for same-sex marriage ceremonies under penalty of “canonical sanctions,” calling the state’s law “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law.” He has also compared the “threat” posed to marriage by gays and lesbians to that of polygamy, adultery, forced marriage, communist dictatorships, and incest.
Despite his rhetoric, a majority of New York Catholics supported the marriage equality bill months before it came to a vote and still do.
The porcine Dolan is a nasty piece of work and a prime example of why I left Catholicism after the sex abuse scandal exploded in 2002.
Bradley Manning was found guilty of violating the Espionage Act by a military judge but was acquitted of the separate and far more serious charge of “aiding the enemy.” Manning now “faces a possible maximum sentence of more than 130 years in military jail when his sentence is handed down. Personally, I hope Manning receives a light sentence. I believe that he was a whistle blower who provided an invaluable service in exposing some of the war crimes committed by American troops in the fool's errands launched by the feckless Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney. What I find most disturbing is that while Barack Obama has feign horror at the war crimes authorized by the Bush/Cheney regime, his administration has spent more time and effort prosecuting those who have exposed the crimes rather than prosecuting those who committed or authorized the crimes in the first place. The end conclusion? First, that Barack Obama is morally bankrupt and is not much better than Bush/Cheney in this regard. Second, that a harsh sentence for Manning will be one more step towards totalitarianism which will intimidate the press. A piece in The Guardian looks at Obama's unrelenting war on whistle blowers and, by extension, the press. Here are highlights:
The American journalism trade is breathing a collective – but premature and, in many cases, grossly hypocritical – sigh of relief today. A military judge has found Bradley Manning guilty of many crimes, but "aiding the enemy" isn't one of them.Had the judge found Manning guilty of aiding the enemy, she would have set a terrible precedent. For the first time, an American court – albeit a military court – would have said it was a potentially capital crime simply to give information to a news organization, because in the internet era an enemy would ultimately have been able to read what was leaked.However, if journalism dodged one figurative bullet, it faces many more in this era. The ever-more-essential field of national security journalism was already endangered. It remains so. The Obama administration's war on leaks and, by extension, the work of investigative reporters who dare to challenge the most secretive government in our lifetimes, has been unrelenting.The Manning verdict had plenty of bad news for the press. By finding Manning guilty of five counts of espionage, the judge endorsed the government's other radical theories, and left the journalism organization that initially passed along the leaks to the public, Wikileaks, no less vulnerable than it had been before the case started. Anyone who thinks Julian Assange isn't still a target of the US Government hasn't been paying attention; if the US can pry him loose from Ecuador's embassy in London and extradite him, you can be certain that he'll face charges, too, and the Manning verdict will be vital to that case.The military tried its best to make life difficult for journalists covering the Manning trial, but activists – not traditional journalists – were the ones who fought restrictions most successfully.National security journalist Jeremy Scahill summed it up after the verdict when he told Democracy Now: "We're in a moment when journalism is being criminalized."For those who want to tell the public what the government is doing with our money and in our name, there are new imperatives. Governmental secrecy, surveillance and the systematic silencing of whistleblowers require updated methods for journalists and journalism organizations of all kinds. Americans pursuing this craft have to understand the risks and find countermeasures.That is not enough. The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself. We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the unaccountable.
Yes, I supported Obama over Romney, but in politics, often one has to pick the lesser of the evils. Obama's persecution of whistle blowers and his refusal to sign and ENDA like executive order speak volumes and none of it good. This portion of a piece in the Virginian Pilot on the verdict continues to haunt me:
Manning acknowledged giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, and video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
The video released by Manning showed the American military members involved exulting in the deaths of totally innocent civilians. It makes me very ashamed to be an American.
I frequently lament the closed mindedness and open embrace of ignorance that are the hallmark of far right Christians (hate and bigotry are others). Anything that challenges them have to think or raises questions about their Bronze Age derived belief system is rejected - often hysterically so - and they retreat into a fantasy world that tries to disconnect from objective reality. In the process, untold harm is done to society not to mention children raised in ignorance worship homes. Andrew Sullivan sums it up well while reviewing the Christianist reaction to the new book Zealot described in an earlier post:
Christian fundamentalists often simply have no way to respond to the facts – because empirical inquiry is anathema to fundamentalists. They refuse to acknowledge the extraordinary insights into the origins of the Gospels that historical research has unearthed; they cannot tolerate any dissent from Biblical literalism (itself an inherent contradiction, since the Bible repeatedly contradicts itself if taken literally); they have to blind themselves to the science of our time in a way someone like Aquinas did not in his; they even have to insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis, for goodness’ sake.
So what are they to do when someone pops up with some actual research and arguments and challenges to received dogma? The only thing they can do is attack the messenger. That’s how intellectually bankrupt Christianism is. It cannot relate its own dogmas to the truths about the world we have discovered outside of faith. Christianists do not seem to understand that if something is demonstrably true, it cannot be counter to God, who is the ultimate Truth. They are terrified of using their minds because their faith is so often mindless – and any engagement with contemporary scholarship on Christianity is a threat to their faith, rather than, as it should be, a spur to see it in a new light.
What you see above, in other words, is an expression of fear and unreason. Which is roughly all that Christianism has in its rigid quiver.
One has to wonder what form of mental illness or psychological disturbance leads one to remain a fundamentalist Christian when all the evidence around you indicates that your beliefs are not valid.
The spineless International Olympic Committee has been trying to dodge having to take meaningful action - e.g., move the 2014 Winter Games to a new venue - in the face of Russia's horrific new anti-gay laws and attacks on LGBT individuals. Part of this dodge and weave gambit has involved trying to rely on vague assurances that no gay athletes or tourists will be harassed or prosecuted. Now, a Russian law maker, Vitaly Milonov, (pictured at right), is saying that such assurances are meaningless and that gay athletes and tourists WILL be arrested at the 2014 Games. Here are details from Gay Star News:
A Russian lawmaker has said the ‘gay propaganda’ law will remain enforced during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 2014.Vitaly Milonov, co-sponsor of the ‘non-traditional relationships’ bill, said the government cannot decide when to selectively enforce the law.It comes as the International Olympic Committee said the Russian government had ‘assured’ them all athletes and spectators will be safe from arrest.‘If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it. It doesn’t have the authority.’Milonov was the deputy responsible for the law prohibiting ‘gay propaganda’ in St Petersburg, beginning the trend that led to the nationwide ban.
As I said, there is an easy fix: move the venue of the games if the laws are not repealed immediately. Otherwise, the IOC will be acting no better than it did when it allowed the 1936 Summer Games to be held in Berlin. Putin and Russia need to be humiliated and sent a message that the civilized world does not tolerate nations that breach their international agreements.
A Russian lawmaker has said the ‘gay propaganda’ law will remain enforced during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 2014.
Vitaly Milonov, co-sponsor of the ‘non-traditional relationships’ bill, said the government cannot decide when to selectively enforce the law.
It comes as the International Olympic Committee said the Russian government had ‘assured’ them all athletes and spectators will be safe from arrest.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/russian-lawmaker-we-will-arrest-gay-athletes-tourists-olympic-games300713#sthash.IJsxs8VS.dpuf
Vitaly Milonov, co-sponsor of the ‘non-traditional relationships’ bill, said the government cannot decide when to selectively enforce the law.
It comes as the International Olympic Committee said the Russian government had ‘assured’ them all athletes and spectators will be safe from arrest.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/russian-lawmaker-we-will-arrest-gay-athletes-tourists-olympic-games300713#sthash.IJsxs8VS.dpuf
The Internet has been inundated with coverage of the idiocy of a Fox News religion correspondent who attacked the author of a new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth because the author is Muslim and, according to the dim witted Lauren Green, therefore incapable of a balanced scholarly work on the Christ story. As this blog has repeatedly addressed, the truth is that we know little or nothing about the real Christ - if he even actually existed - and that the leaders of the early Church re-wrote and revised and edited what became the New Testament to fit their agenda and the quest for power and control. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the new book and some of the assertions that will drive the Christofascists bonkers - not that they aren't already insane. Here are some highlights:
The clip became an Internet sensation over the weekend, with BuzzFeed among the first to link to the segment on Saturday with the headline: “Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?” New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum tweeted that, indeed, the interview was “absolutely demented,” while The American Conservative called it “cringe-worthy,” “ignorant” and “breathtakingly incurious,” pointing out that Green showed “zero interest in the book’s argument or content.”What is Aslan saying about Jesus? How different is the historical Jesus of Nazareth from Christ the religious figure? What were the precise events that led to his crucifixion? And what about those three kings who traveled to Bethlehem to meet the son of God?Here are the most controversial claims from Zealot:JESUS WASN'T BORN IN BETHLEHEM - Few argue that The Nativity is not a lovely story, especially when it’s acted out in church Christmas pageants, complete with Mary and Joseph, and three gift-bearing kings, all in Bethlehem to coo over the newborn son of God. But Aslan writes that this story is simply a magical tale. It appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke but it’s not mentioned by any of the other apostles. (“The name Bethlehem does not appear anywhere else in the entire New Testament, save for a single verse in the gospel of John.”)Jesus the historical figure was more likely born and raised in Nazareth—an off-the-map village in Galilee, according to Aslan. “That he came from this tightly enclosed village of a few hundred impoverished Jews may very well be the only fact concerning Jesus’s childhood about which we can be fairly confident,”JOHN THE BAPTIST WAS ONCE BIGGER THAN JESUS - The apostles reinterpreted John the Baptist’s (in)significance in the gospels to make Jesus seem like the one and only messiah, according to Aslan. The scholar Josephus, who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, writes in Antiquities that John was put to death by Antipas, a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea, because he was becoming too popular due to his promises of a new world order—the Kingdom of God. “Many assumed he was the messiah,” writes Aslan, though you would never know it from reading the gospel.According to Aslan: “The problem for the early Christians was that any acceptance of the basic facts of John’s interaction with Jesus would have been a tacit admission that John was, at least at first, a superior figure...After all, who baptized whom?”JESUS WAS A ZEALOT REVOLUTIONARY - The real Jesus was more like Che Guevara and history’s other famous rabble rousers than the passive, love-thy-neighbor Christ figure in the bible. It’s not clear why Jesus left Nazareth for Judea and John the Baptist, but when he returned, his transformation from craftsman to self-declared prophet was not entirely well-received. So he established his ministry in Capernaum, a nearby fishing village, which - like Nazareth - was divided between the haves and the have-nots. The Capernaum have-nots did not know about Jesus’s past life as a craftsman and they were desperate for a better life.Aslan writes that Jesus targeted “those who found themselves cast to the fringes of society, whose lives had been disrupted by the social and economic shifts taking place throughout Galilee.”
HE WAS CRUCIFIED FOR EFFECTIVELY COMMITTING A CAPITAL OFFENSE - When Jesus marched into Jerusalem around 30 C.E., flanked by a chorus of followers singing, “Blessed be the coming kingdom of our father David!” he was announcing himself to the city as the messiah and ancestor of David, King of Judah. Then, like a true revolutionary, he forced the city’s vendors out of the temple’s public courtyard--a “blatantly criminal act,” Asman writes. “After all, an attack on the business of the temple is akin to an attack on the priesty nobility, which, considering the temple’s tangled relationship with Rome, is tantamount to attack on Rome itself.”With that sweeping gesture, Jesus’s message was simple: the land didn’t belong to Rome but to God, and it was time for Caesar to concede power to Hossana, the real King of Jews. This was sedition and the punishment was crucifixion. The New Testament says Jesus’s crucifixion was a cruelly special punishment for a man who sacrificed himself for humanity’s sins, but history tells us that he was no different from “any other criminal who hangs on a cross.”JESUS DIDN'T CONDONE VIOLENCE, BUT HE DID NOT AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS EITHER - Jesus’s aggressive “cleansing” of Jerusalem’s temple is unlike the peacemaking Christ we know from the Bible--the one who invariably loved his neighbors and “turned the other cheek” in the face of violence. For starters, there is no evidence that these references are symbolic to all of mankind, but rather that he was speaking only about his Jewish neighbors and enemies.Add to this that his entire ministry was constructed around the promise--specifically his promise—of God’s sovereignty on earth, and we can only assume that Jesus expected bloodshed before this foundation for a new world order was laid, Aslan writes. Why else would he have warned his disciples that they, too, would “take up his cross” if they chose to follow him? As Aslan points out, his attempt to hide his “messianic secret” about the Kingdom of God from everyone but his disciples indicates that he knew what was to come--that what he envisioned was “so radical, so dangerous, so revolutionary, that Rome’s only conceivable response would be to arrest and execute them all for sedition.”
What's remarkable is that the book underscores how little is really known about Christ. Yet wars have been fought and countless individuals have died because of a religion based on someone we know almost nothing about historically. It's all based on the much forged and re-edited Bible. Recognizing this truth, of course, would cause the Christofascists' house of cards faith to utterly collapse. We can expect more attacks on Aslan and others who rock their sinking boat.
It's a story that we see time and time again: rampant bullying of those perceived to be gay and school officials who do nothing to stop. Ultimately, the victim can take it no longer and opts to end his/her life as the only escape. The scenario was what drove Christian Taylor to end his life after local York County, Virginia school officials did nothing to stop constant bullying. Worse yet, in Virginia, since suicide is an unlawful act, Taylor's tormentors got away with murder. Now, the same story is coming out of Iowa where a 16 year old ended his life in a disturbingly similar pattern. Fueling all of this tragedy is religious based hatred and poison preached from pulpits that makes bullies feel down right justified in the abuse they heap on others. All so that human refuse like Maggie Gallagher, Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins can make a buck and feel morally superior. The New Civil Rights Movement looks at this sad story. Here are excerpts:
A grieving mother today is blaming school officials who “did nothing” to stem the rampant bullying she says caused her 16-year old gay son’s suicide. Sheryl Moore says 30-40 friends and classmates of her son, Alexander “AJ” Betts Jr., came to her after his death and all told her of the culture of bullying school administrators reportedly allow at Southeast Polk High School in Pleasant Hill, Iowa. Betts’ death is the fifth suicide in five years at Southeast Polk High School.
“AJ told the administration,” of the culture of bullying at Southeast Polk High School, Moore says,” and they did nothing about it.” Sadly, this is an all too common comment parents of LGBT teens who attempt or complete suicide often state.
Moore says her son was outed about a year and a half ago, and was bullied form both being gay and bi-racial.
The Des Moines Register notes that Betts attempted suicide on Friday, but “was on life support to repair damaged organs for donation. His mother Sheryl Moore said candidates have been selected to receive his liver and kidneys and doctors plan to take Betts off life support today.”
Note how racism and homophobia go hand in hand in this story. What is most disheartening is that the school officials will likely get off with a slap on the risk at best.
Monday, 29 July 2013
Many media outlets are reporting how during Pope Francis’ airplane press conference as he returned to Rome from Brazil, Francis remarks "Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" . . . "You can't marginalize these people." and acting as if these comments somehow marked a turning point in the Church's anti-gay jihad. Among those wetting themselves for joy are Andrew Sullivan (whom I have meet and with whom I frequently agree although I think he is delusional in his refusal to walk away from Catholicism), who stated:
What’s so striking to me is not what he said, but how he said it: the gentleness, the humor, the transparency. I find myself with tears in my eyes as I watch him. I’ve lived a long time to hear a Pope speak like that – with gentleness and openness, reasserting established dogma with sudden, sweeping exceptions that aren’t quite exceptions – except they sure sound like them.
What Francis is telling us, it seems to me, is that we should stop squabbling about these esoteric doctrines – while he assents to orthodoxy almost reflexively – and simply do good to others, which is the only thing that really matters. Stop obsessing in your mind and act in the world: help someone, love someone, forgive someone, meet someone.
I'm sorry Andrew, but I think PeterTatchell got it right because wishful thinking and wanting something does not necessarily make it true. Here is how Tatchell reacted:
“Pope Francis has offered a change of tone in Vatican pronouncements on gay people but not a change in substance. The church’s hardline stance against gay equality and relationships remains intact. It opposes same-sex marriage. The Catechism condemns homosexual love using strident, inflammatory and homophobic language,” said Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
“At best, his statement is a shift away from old-style vengeful condemnation and punishment towards a more conciliatory and merciful church. Although he preaches forgiveness, he still regards homosexuality as a sin for which people must repent. This is only marginal theological progress.
Actions speak louder than words and until such times as (i) the Catechism is revised to stop referring to gays as disordered, (ii) the Church, the Knight of Columbus and other Catholic organizations cease opposing gay rights, including gay marriage, (iii) gay priests and seminarians are not in theory being driven away because of their sexual orientation, and (iv) the Catholic Church's "ex-gay" ministry is shut down, I will not see Francis' remarks as meaning one damn thing. Andrew Sullivan and others need to get a grip on themselves and stop deluding themselves.
Supposedly GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, a/k/a "Kookinelli", was going to run a campaign that would down play his extremist position on social issues and focus instead on broad based economic issues that most Virginians are worried about. Instead what does Kookinelli do? He goes on a one man jihad to uphold Virginia's sodomy statute - which bars any type of sex acts other than heterosexual sex in the so-called missionary position - despite the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas a decade ago and a recent ruling by the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit that reaffirmed that Virginia's sodomy statute is unconstitutional. To date, Kookinelli has gone down in flames each step of the way in this quest and today he took his batshitery to a new level by asking the U. S. Supreme Court to stay the 4th Circuit ruling until that Court considers Kookinelli's appeal from the 4th Circuit.
As a recent post on this blog indicates, if Kookinelli's real goal was to prosecute those guilty of sex crimes against minors as claimed, a statute already is on the books in Virginia that would allow him to do precisely that. Thus, Kookinelli's only real goal can be that he wants to use the sodomy statute to harass gays and threaten them with felony charges rather than mere misdemeanors. The Virginian Pilot looks at Kookinelli's latest proof that "he doth protest too much me thinks" on the issue of sodomy. Here are highlights:
Virginia's attorney general is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a lower court's decision striking down the state's anti-sodomy law while the case is on appeal.
Chief Justice John Roberts has asked the other side for a response by next Monday.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared Virginia's law against oral and anal sex unconstitutional in March. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli appealed the panel's 2-1 ruling to the Supreme Court in June.
In the appeal, Cuccinelli claims a 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law applied only to sex acts between consenting adults, not those between an adult and a minor.
The problem for Kookinelli, of course is that as written, the sodomy statute makes ANYONE who has oral or anal sex guilty of a felony. Even if they are a married heterosexual couple. As Mother Jones has noted, as written, Virginia's statute would criminalize close to 90% of the population:
If Virginia's ban on "unnatural" sex acts applied nationwide, the Virginia law would make 90 percent of men and women in the United States between the age of 25 and 44 criminals. Here's a chart from the National Center on Health Statistics on sexual behavior in the US:
A new Gallup poll contains more bad news for the Christofascists and their puppets in the GOP: the percentage of Americans supporting full marriage equality has increased again. Perhaps more significantly, 52% would make gay marriage nationwide. The spittle will be flying in the offices of hate groups like The Family Foundation and in Ken Cuccinelli's campaign headquarters. Here are some highlights:
If given the opportunity to vote on a law legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states, the slight majority of Americans, 52%, say they would cast their vote in favor, while 43% would vote against it.Gallup used two separate approaches to measure public support for gay marriage this month, and they produced similar results: 52% would vote for a federal law legalizing same-sex marriages in all 50 states, and 54% think gay marriages should be recognized as valid, with the same rights as marriages between men and women. … [G]roups showing at least 60% support for legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide include Democrats, adults aged 18 to 34, those who rarely or never attend a church or other place of worship, moderates, Easterners, and Catholics.
By prostituting itself to hate and bigotry filled Christofascists, the GOP is committing a slow moving form of suicide.
Wealth disparities in America now exceed those in Europe and even former banana republics. And things seem to be getting only worse as more and more Americans live on the edge just a pay check away from financial ruin and ensuing poverty. Yet, the GOP continues to seek to slash social programs and to cut taxes for the very wealthy. The GOP agenda is the antithesis of what the "godly folk" of the GOP base ought to be pursuing if they really gave a damn about the Gospel message that they pretend to revere. A new study reveals just how bad things have become. A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at the findings:
Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy “poor.”
“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn’t generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.
“If you do try to go apply for a job, they’re not hiring people, and they’re not paying that much to even go to work,” she said. Children, she said, have “nothing better to do than to get on drugs.”
The gauge defines “economic insecurity” as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.
Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.
“It’s time that America comes to understand that many of the nation’s biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position,” said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty. He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama’s election, while struggling whites do not.
“There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front,” Wilson said.
Sometimes termed “the invisible poor” by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America’s heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.
Buchanan County in southwest Virginia is among the nation’s most destitute based on median income, with poverty hovering at 24 percent. The county is mostly white, as are 99 percent of its poor.
More than 90 percent of Buchanan County’s inhabitants are working-class whites who lack a college degree. Higher education long has been seen there as nonessential to land a job because well-paying mining and related jobs were once in plentiful supply. These days many residents get by on odd jobs and government checks.
There is much more depressing news and the irony is that many of the poor whites stupidly support the GOP which is in reality their worse enemy. Another irony is that Buchanan County, Virginia, is in the land of Bible beaters and open bigotry, yet residents wonder why no progressive business wants to locate there. Who would want to move to a region filled with racists, homophobes and Neanderthals? Bigotry and intolerance carries a high economic price. Meanwhile, of course, the GOP blathers on and on about American exceptionalism.
I've commented a number of times on the all out war on gays being waged in Russia with the active support of dictator Vladimir Putin and the top levels of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Sadly, the governments of most nations in the world are doing little or nothing to condemn this anti-gay jihad which is part of a larger pattern of brutality and persecution in Russia. The New York Times had a great editorial over the weekend condemning what is currently occurring in Russia. Here are excerpts:
To the long list of Russians whom President Vladimir Putin is persecuting, add gay people and those who support gay rights. Along with political dissidents, journalists and billionaire businessmen, they are increasingly the focus of repellent laws and repressive practices that could send them, and anyone who dares defend them, to jail.For some time, antigay sentiment has been spreading in Russia’s conservative society, encouraged by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. But Mr. Putin and his government have taken that to a new level by legitimizing the hatemongering in legislation.Earlier this month, he signed a law banning the adoption of Russian-born children to gay couples and to any couple or single parent living in any country where marriage equality exists. Last month, Mr. Putin signed a law allowing the police to arrest tourists and foreigners suspected of being gay or pro-gay and detain them for up to 14 days. He also signed a bill classifying “homosexual” propaganda as pornography with vague wording that could subject anyone arguing for tolerance or educating children about homosexuality to arrest and fines.There is no defense for such actions, which occur against a backdrop of growing violence against gays and could be seen as a license for even more violence. Russia is in danger of moving from pursuing the rule of law to the rule of hate. The new laws contravene Russian commitments to human rights and fundamental freedoms under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. They also contradict the charter of the International Olympic Committee, which calls sport a “human right” and states that “every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind.”The United States, which has made great strides in accepting and protecting gay rights, has expressed concern about the new laws but needs to be more forceful. So does the International Olympic Committee, which too often fails to defend the Olympic ideals and should be leading a full-throated international campaign to insist that Russia repeal these laws.
As noted before, in my view, the International Olympic Committee is worthless. A bowl of Jell-o has more spine. If the 2014 games go off in Russia, it will be reminiscent of the 1936 games in Berlin.
One of the loudest voices for bigotry and racism on the airwaves is Rush Limbaugh. Another force for hate and division is Sean Hannity. Now, both have been dropped by Cumulus, the second-largest operator of radio stations in the country. It will be interesting to see how Limbaugh, a loud mouthed jerk in my view who talks about protecting the "sanctity of marriage" while on his own fourth marriage, tries to spin this obvious set back. Here are details from Politico:
In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.
Cumulus has decided that it will not renew its contracts with either host, the source said, a move that would remove the two most highly rated conservative talk personalities from more than 40 Cumulus channels in major markets.
The decision comes after negotiations between Cumulus and Premiere Networks, the division of Clear Channel that distributes Limbaugh and Hannity's shows, broke down due to disagreements over the cost of the distribution rights, the source said. Cumulus is known to drive a hard bargain on costs, and Clear Channel is known to seek top dollar for big names.
Premiere, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night, is expected to carry Limbaugh and Hannity on stations in many of the markets where they are currently signed with Cumulus, should the negotiations not go through. A spokesperson for Limbaugh was not immediately available for comment; Hannity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Back in May, a source close to Limbaugh told POLITICO that the host was considering ending his affiliation agreement with Cumulus because CEO Lew Dickey was blaming the company's advertising losses on Limbaugh's controversial remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student. On an earnings call two days later, Dickey reported a $2.4 million first-quarter decline in revenue related to talk programming, which he attributed, indirectly, to Limbaugh's remarks about Fluke.
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