Will Saddam Hussein’s hanging help bring stability to Iraq?
Yes 22% — 18293 votes
No 78% — 65617 votes
Total: 83910 votes
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Source: CNN.com QuickVote
LONDON, England (CNN) — While many countries and rights groups around the world said they did not support the death penalty, most expressed the hope that the execution of Saddam Hussein would prove a turning point for the people of Iraq. … Hussein execution: World reaction – CNN.com
In 1776, the first draft of the Declaration of Independence protested that Britain’s supposedly “Christian king” had “waged a cruel war against human nature” and violated “sacred rights of life & liberty” by enslaving Africans.
Further, it said, slaves often suffered “miserable death” in transit to America and King George had suppressed every attempt “to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”
The Continental Congress quickly deleted this moralistic language from a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson.
Students of history are regularly rewarded with such surprises. They’ll discover this one and many more in the college textbook “Unto a Good Land: A History of the American People” (Eerdmans). The 10-year production from six historians and 50 consultants covers Indian life before Columbus through the 2004 election and war in Iraq.
A Sentinel in Time
By William Rivers Pitt
“The calendar pages of our collective history are dotted with a gloomy constellation of days marked in blood, in woe, and in regret. The assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy; that last, hurried helicopter flight from that last rooftop on that last day of our time in Vietnam; the day four lifeless little bodies were pulled from the rubble of a bombed church in Birmingham; the December morning when Pearl Harbor was transformed into a graveyard etched in infamy, the September morning when we all watched those proud Towers in Manhattan crumble and fall – these moments, and the others of like kind too vast in number to name, defined us and transformed us even as they left their scars….
“…Worst of all, such days breed more days to match or surpass them. The wretched offspring of one malignant moment are birthed into our future, where they wait like deep chasms in a darkened road. Like Booth’s bullet, they cut a swath through time itself, and no matter our efforts or exertions, we never seem quite able to reach a place where we are free from their damned and damnable power to do us harm.
”On the twentieth day of this coming new year, we will mark the sixth anniversary of the moment George W. Bush stood before Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, raised his right hand into a bitter wind, and swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. …”
What’s all this horse manure about the War on Christmas, War on Religion, etc.? What’s that really about?
Lately I’ve been thinking about all these “wars on…” that the media — especially the right wing media — have been whining about. To begin with, I figured it was just the knee-jerk alarmists who need to have stuff to preach and complain about, lest they lose their cred with the congregation.
When I got to really thinking about it, though, the whole picture just didn’t make sense. According to adherents.com, which keeps track of such things for the majority of us who don’t care and the others that like to brag about it, the United States has more Christians among its population (224,457,000 — 85% — in 1996) than any other country in the world. Even Mexico (at 99%) and France (at 98%) have nowhere near the total numbers of purported Christians, since both are under 100 million in population. The only country that comes close is Brazil, with about 140 million. [These are figures from the mid-90's, but the proportions, you may be sure, still hold. Those folks didn't suddenly stop breeding in 1996.]
Who, then, is carrying out these so-called wars? Is it us Buddhists — around a million of us? Is it the Rosicrucians? The Jews? The Atheists and agnostics? A couple of million Pagans? A vast conspiracy of 15% of the population? Awwwww, c’mon. Give me a break!
The facts are, this is pretty much a Christian country, and no one has the power to take away their rights. Unfortunately, from the Christian Right’s point of view, it is also a country where the other 15-odd percent have rights as well.
Common sense and arithmetic tell you that the “War against” things Christian in the United States (and the European countries where, generally speaking, the percentage of Christians in the population is even higher than here) is the WMD’s of the current attempt of the Right to gain as close to complete control over all of us as possible. They’ve gotten about as far as they could with the Homeland Security Act and the War Against Terror slight of hand, and this is the next step. It’s that simple — and the only thing that makes sense. If they can frighten their constituents enough to make them believe that their religious freedom really is threatened, then they can get them to stand still for whatever they want to do to advance their cause. Think WMD’s folks, because it’s the same tactic exactly. It worked with the War on Terror, and it will work again, if you let it.
The big question is why, and the answer is simple: power. Liberals represent money out of their pockets — the pockets of the religious right and of the business interests that have co-opted the flock with the help of their shepherds. Non-Christians aren’t the enemy, they’re the bogeyman in the closet (along with gays) that the Right is using to convince their own people that they are threatened, in order to persuade them to let their leaders take away their privileges.
Expect even more of this in the time leading up to the next election. The people spoke loudly and clearly in November, and they scared the bejeezuz out of Big Business and their allies. Look for people like the “Rev.” Sun Myung Moon to pour more billions into losing media franchises (The Washington Times, in Moon’s case) in order to have controllable mouthpieces for their cant. Look for the conglomerate-controlled portions of the other media to do likewise. Look for the shills like Rush, Al and the other media whores to hump away. Look for allegations of all sorts of unchristian behavior from liberal candidates.
And ask yourself: where are the WMD’s? Where are the hordes of unbelievers, yearning to destroy Christianity?
There ain’t none, folks, and the only war is of the Christians’ making. The reality? The soi-disant “opposition” has no power! We don’t control the media — they do. We aren’t bringing suit to trample other people’s rights — they are, under the guise of protecting their own. We aren’t spreading lies about the Founding Fathers. They are. Liberals aren’t sending other people’s kids to die in a war that was started for the benefit of the military-industrial complex. They are. We aren’t telling every lie, digging up every bit of mud we can to undermine our political opponents. Those who have fallen did it on their own, despite the efforts of their henchmen to cover it up.
Wise up America, while you still have a (partially) free country to do it in. Ask yourself one question: out of the 2.5 trillion dollars blown on unnecessary wars in the past four years — two wars that accomplished nothing useful — WHO GOT MOST OF IT? Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not me. Not you. We paid. Where did it go?
As Jerry McGuire said, “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
My Christian friends, you’re being led down the garden path. Again. And we’re going to pay with more than money and airport delays this time. All of us.
Think about it.
I know — we’re not supposed to use cross words, but we can fill in the blanks. 
I’ve been trying to post some of my own for weeks, but haven’t been able to get the HTML to play nice with WordPress’ CSS. Time will tell. In the meantime…
BuddhaNet’s crosswords can be used as a teaching aid to learn Buddhist terms and concepts and/or expand your knowledge of Buddhist terminology. Their Buddhist Dictionary, Dharma Data , will help you with some of the clues, or try the Glossary of Buddhist Terms section.
To do these crosswords you must download the compressed archived (zipped) questions by clicking on the links. They are RTF files (Rich Text Format). Print out the text and do the puzzle, then check back to the site for the solutions. http://www.buddhanet.net/xwords.htm
The Supreme Court, whose bench is composed of the nine most esteemed and powerful judges in the nation, protects and interprets the United States constitution and heads the Judicial Branch of our government.
This website, written by teachers, provides insight into the history of the “highest court in the nation”, and is a valuable tool for social studies
educators and students.
Read a detailed history of the Court, check out the site’s Interactive Time Line, and learn about the upcoming four-part PBS series on The Supreme Court. There are also more specific articles about the Court’s role in American policy, including “The Court and Basic Rights” and “The Court Today”. http://www.historyofsupremecourt.org/
With the holiday season comes the inevitable onslaught of party
invitations, some of which you either cannot, or do not, want to
attend. The Holiday Party Excuse Generator is an invaluable tool that can save you from having to attend undesirable or inconvenient events. Simply answer a few questions, and let the awesome “Generator” do all the talking. http://holiday.enlighten.com/
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961
Here comes the surge. Reports this week indicate the Pentagon is preparing to send 3,500 troops to Kuwait to await deployment to Iraq, the next step down a disastrous path of escalation.
Before the escalation becomes inevitable, it must be made clear that this reckless strategy is being dictated by the White House and not by the military commanders who are being poked, prodded, pushed — and bribed — into backing it.
Again and again and again, President Bush has insisted that he’s running the war by listening to his generals, and that he doesn’t “make decisions based upon politics about how to win a war,” choosing to “trust our commanders on the ground to give the best advice about how to achieve victory.” As he put it in the run-up to the midterm elections: “I believe that you empower your generals to make the decisions — the recommendations on what we do to win.”
But that’s clearly not what’s happening.
For months, those commanders, Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey, have been unwavering in their opposition to sending more troops to Iraq, arguing that it would increase Iraqi dependency on Washington, lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents, attract more foreign jihadists to Iraq, increase the impression of an American occupation, and, in the evocative words of a senior military official, “be like throwing kerosene on a fire.”
Testifying at a Senate Armed Services hearing last month, Gen. Abizaid said unequivocally that he did not “believe that more American troops right now is the solution.”
But the surge is moving forward anyway. So much for “trusting and empowering” your commanders. Making matters worse, Abizaid and Casey are providing cover for Bush by caving to White House pressure and acting like they support the move — albeit in the most unenthusiastic terms possible. MORE: Best Advice of Generals Be Damned
Bush and his military-industrial backers know that this is their last shot.
The new Congress convenes in less than two weeks. At that point Bush will lose a lot of his power to escalate his various business interests, although the remains of the Republicans in Congress and his position as so-called Commander in Chief may allow him to screw things up even more before he is forced to give the country back to its citizens…especially if he calls for a unilateral strike on Iran. That would cost billions (paid to his buddies who supply the weapons, aircraft, ammo, support services, petroleum and so forth) and would also so inextricably enmesh us in a West Asian war that they could count on a comfortable income for years onward.
If you aren’t writing to your congresspeople (REAL letters) on a monthly basis, you aren’t doing your part. They ignore emails — too easy — but they know folks who write hard copy are serious.
…One cannot help but wonder what Jesus would think of today’s religion that bears his name, let alone the other two monotheistic religions that emerged from his homeland.
Certainly there is no peace on the troubled earth that we call the Holy Land. Nearly a quarter century ago, I produced a television documentary I called “Holy Land, Bloody Ground,” for which I journeyed to the Middle East. If the ground was bloody in 1982, it is saturated in blood today, and all three monotheistic religions have a hand in the carnage.
We kill, they kill, we all kill in the name of God. Christians are squeezed from the birthplace of Jesus by militant Zionist Israelis on one side and Islamic militants on the other. Ironically, Christian fundamentalists are egging this on in hopes that it will trigger the Rapture, when the chosen will have box seats as unbelievers are barbequed by a righteous God.
Not to be outdone, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad favors an Islamic version of the End Times in which he nukes Israel and prompts the return of the Mahdi, a prophet of particular importance to Shiites.
In Iraq, devastated by a war prosecuted by right-wing Christian politicians in league with neoconservative Zionists, an Islamic theocracy is likely to result, widening divisions within the region and putting women back in their proper place behind veils and walls.
Even in this country, sometimes cited as the most religious in the Western world, the body of Christ is torn and tossed from one extreme to another. … More: The Seattle Times: Opinion: What would Jesus do about religion’s evolution?
The Amish community, which inspired the world with acts of forgiveness after a Pennsylvania schoolhouse shooting, has been named the newsmaker of the year by the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA) and Beliefnet.
Source: Religion writers rate Amish, Muhammad cartoons as biggest stories
These are edgy times at the Washington Times. Still one of the most important right-wing organs in the nation, the paper has a circulation base of around 100,000. According to a source close to senior management, in the past two decades it has burned through far more than the $1.7 billion previously reported. During that time its editorial stance has consistently leaned to the hard right, as its favorite targets have ranged from liberal comsymps to President Bill Clinton to, most recently, “illegal aliens” and their allies in the “open borders lobby.”
Throughout, the Times has served as a major key on the conservative movement’s Mighty Wurlitzer.
A nasty succession battle is now heating up at the paper, punctuated by allegations of racism, sexism and unprofessional conduct, that has implications far beyond its fractious newsroom. According to several reliable inside sources, Preston Moon, the youngest son of Korean Unification Church leader and Times financier Sun Myung Moon, has initiated a search committee to find a replacement for editor in chief Wesley Pruden … More: Hell of a ‘Times
…Currently, the Washington Times seems inclined to continue serving as a leading defender of Republican power and thus of President Bush. Calling itself “America’s Newspaper,” the Moon-financed Times also has championed the cause of anti-immigration activists, another hot-button issue on the Right.
But the Times and other right-wing news outlets risk a credibility crisis as more and more Americans turn away from the Bush presidency and are turned off by the right-wing rhetoric demonizing citizens who have objected to Bush’s policies. Nevertheless, history will surely record that Moon’s $3 billion-plus investment succeeded in buying a remarkable degree of Washington influence – and legal protection – for his dubious political/business/religious empire.
The extraordinary rise of Sun Myung Moon also tells a cynical story about how respectability is just one more Washington commodity that can be purchased with enough money.
Known for crowning himself at lavish ceremonies and ranting for hours in Korean about the proper use of sex organs, Sun Myung Moon may have the distinction of being the most unusual person ever to gain substantial influence in the U.S. capital. He has proved that in Washington, money talks…. More: Consortiumnews.com
