UNDERDOGS OR CORPORATE LAPDOGS?
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Tim Kaine | ||||
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They must just be "having a bad day"..... or a bad time in power.
Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. @BruceKGagnon
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Tim Kaine | ||||
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Let's Keep the Dialogue Going (Times Record Editorial by James McCarthy - Opinion Page Editor)
Speak Up Even If your Voice Cracks (Mary Beth Sullivan & Karen Wainberg)
Path to True Security (Lisa Savage)
Last week the Lewiston Sun Journal newspaper here in Maine wrote a powerful editorial (Turning From War to Building Our Economy) along these same lines. They are a paper owned by Republicans and are not normally known for this kind of position. There is clearly something beginning to sprout across Maine and we in the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign feel we have helped to foster this change in climate.
Baltimore, Maryland or Detroit, Michigan - same story. No jobs, banks disinvesting in the community, government services being defunded.
But there is plenty of money to recruit the poor people from these neighborhoods to join the Army and fight and die in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is happening all over America. The people are being brought onto the reservation. The oligarchy has no intention of creating real jobs for the people. Our role in the world will be "security export" which means we will build and sell weapons and fight wars to control diminishing resources.
Republicans and Democrats alike understand the coming game and are fine with it. You hear no politician from either party alerting the public to the real plan for our future. If they told the truth their corporate campaign financing would be pulled out from under them.
So what we will get in the coming years is a back-and-forth shell game where the increasing frustrated and angry public throws one party out of power and then in the next election throws the other out.
Nothing will change until the people demand that we end the wars and the trillion dollar a year levels of military spending.
Convert the military industrial complex now. Anything less is just pure public relations bullshit.
Some people are beginning to figure it out. See this editorial by the Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal newspaper owned by Republicans. We need more of this - Bring Our War $$ Home.
Terry Jones Accused of 'Spiritual Abuse' at Cologne Church
By Yassin Musharbash and Dominik Peters
Spiegel Online
US fundamentalist pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, ran a church in the western German city of Cologne until last year when members of the congregation expelled him. Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."
The world is holding its breath -- and it's all down to a tiny Christian fundamentalist church in Florida.
Next Saturday, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Rev. Terry Jones and his colleagues plan to burn hundreds of copies of the Koran on the church's property in Gainesville, Florida.
The White House has condemned the plan, and Muslim organizations around the world have warned of the consequences should the Koran-burning go ahead. But the church is sticking to its plans.
Naturally the radical Islamophobes know very well that their deliberate provocation could trigger potentially violent protests and riots. But they have washed their hands of any responsibility. "Let's just make one thing clear," the wannabe Koran-burners write on their blog. "A small church, in a small town, down a back road, burning copies of its own books, on its own property, is not responsible for the violent actions anyone may take in retaliation to our protest."
Terry Jones, the man behind the action, is the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, a church that manages to attract a Sunday congregation of just 50 people, members of the radical fringe of the evangelical movement. Jones, a 58-year-old former hotel manager with a distinctive mustache, is also the author of a polemic book titled "Islam Is of the Devil."
'Climate of Fear and Control'
In the United States, Jones has already attracted attention on several occasions as an Islamophobic provocateur. What is less well known is that the pastor led a charismatic evangelical church, the Christian Community of Cologne, in the western German city up until 2009. Last year, however, the members of the congregation kicked founder Jones out, because of his radicalism. One of the church's current leaders, Stephan Baar, also told the German news agency DPA that there had been suspicions of financial irregularities in the church surrounding Jones.
A "climate of fear and control" had previously prevailed in the congregation, says one former member of the church who does not want to be named. Instead of free expression, "blind obedience" was demanded, he says.
Various witnesses gave SPIEGEL ONLINE consistent accounts of the Jones' behavior. The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord. Terry and Sylvia Jones allegedly used these methods to ask for money in an increasingly insistent manner, as well as making members of the congregation carry out work.
Andrew Schäfer, a Protestant Church official responsible for monitoring sects in the region where Cologne is located, confirmed the accounts. "Terry Jones is a fundamentalist," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Both major churches in Germany have "sect commissioners" who monitor the activities of religious groups, sects and cults. Although they are obviously not totally impartial, the officials' findings are usually considered to be trustworthy.
'Delusional Personality'
Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of "spiritual abuse," Schäfer said. According to Schäfer, Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught "a distinctive demonology" and conducted brainwashing.
"Terry Jones appears to have a delusional personality," speculates Schäfer. When he came to Germany in the 1980s, Jones apparently considered Cologne "a city of Hell that was founded by Nero's mother," while he thought Germany was "a key country for the supposed Christian revival of Europe," Schäfer says.
Terry Jones used his powers of persuasion to expand the congregation. By the end, Schäfer estimates, it numbered between 800 and 1,000 people. They had to work in the so-called "Lisa Jones Houses," charitable institutions named after his first wife who has since died, under very poor conditions.
Increasingly Radical
Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to "pray away his sins." Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims. "Terry Jones has a talent for finding topical social issues and seizing on them for his own cause," says Schäfer.
By the end of 2007, the community had had enough. Members confronted him and tried to change the direction of the church. But Terry Jones refused to make changes, they say. In the end, Jones, his wife and their fellow preachers were expelled from the church and he moved back to the US. "The community imploded," says Schäfer. It only has some 80 active members today.
Now the whole world is condemning Jones for his planned burning of copies of the Koran. Schäfer, for his part, sees Jones as a fanatic who is courting global media attention because he couldn't cope with the "immense loss of power and significance."
The same is coming here in the U.S. as Obama's commission on Social Security is recommending a similar plan - work longer, get less for retirement.
The oligarchy has to somehow pay for increased militarization and endless wars and their plan is to destroy pension funds - both public and private.
Some years ago the industry publication Space News ran an editorial saying they were sending their lobbyists to Washington to "secure the entitlement programs" which translates to going after Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and what is left of the welfare program (after Bill Clinton got through with it) to pay for new high-tech space weapons programs.