By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Meet Reverend Doctor Phil Snider of the Brentwood Christian Church and consider his fire and brimstone speech on including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual citizens under the protection of Springfield, Missouri’s anti-discrimination ordinance. Phil did his undergraduate work at Missouri State University (Springfield, MO), then earned his masters degree at Phillips Theological Seminary (Tulsa, OK) and doctorate at Chicago Theological Seminary (at the University of Chicago).
Be sure to listen to the ENTIRE speech (it’s not very long) and be in awe:
That’s real religion!
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Here’s how the Norwegians used non-violence to extinguish such types. They avoided the bubble collapse. Read how.
http://www.alternet.org/story/153929/how_swedes_and_norwegians_broke_the_power_of_the_%271_percent%27?page=0%2C0
Written by a veteran protester, a Quaker Professor.
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The second is about how the Swedish workers did it non-violently in 1931. You may have seen the movie: “Ådalen ’31″.
http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/swedish-workers-general-strike-economic-justice-power-shift-dalen-1931
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Note: Thanks to SwM. Swarthmore.edu does good things.
I thought of GeneH’s use, which Malisha reminds me of in her historical view, of the Constitution.
There it stands (roughly) “that no one may be a slave or indentured other than as punishment for crimes…..”!
And Malisha made the question come—-What crime did the 99 percent commit to become indentured/slaves to the onepercenters?
It was near starvation which drove the Swedes and the Norwegians to use collective peaceful actions to bring down the onepercenters there in the 20s–30s.
See my links today to sources describing their non-violent resistance and takeover of their nations.
These articles even make clear that neither are paradises, then nor now.
Are we too fat yet? They have rationalized/eliminated the workers, moved the jobs to China, free trade means no trade or income for us, right to work means right to slave, etc.
Hungry mouths demand food. We ARE TOO FAT now.
Oro Lee, right non. Not only will the good girl from the good family’s competition remain mired in poverty, but this too: her children will be expendable humans. They will be real “human resources,” because if they don’t toe the line and do whatever it takes to get peanut butter and white bread on the table (even if that amounts to working themselves to death while remaining subservient and obsequious at all times), for their whole lives, they’ll make a little mistake and get sent to jail where they will work for 17 cents an hour and/or they can get killed if necessary or if they have “bad luck.” They sure won’t get medical care if they get sick; and if the sickness is a mental illness, they’ll get literally tortured to death.
One of the main uses of abortion on demand was to free poor women or women without support groups from having to fail miserably while trying to take care of their children, knowing this was the only future in sight. The new and corrupt “child support enforcement” offices of each state have not changed that; they have made young Black and Hispanic men vulnerable to repeated bouts of six-months-at-a-pop imprisonment without due process, that’s all. And the child support enforcement offices are filled with the employees who were recycled from the welfare offices who used to make sure at least infants and young children had cheap junk food to eat.
There has been a shifting of responsibilities from the rich to the poor ever since this country went through a cosmetic “SHRUG” to throw off what they called slavery, only to replace it over the course of 150 years with a more palatable kind of mass exploitation not all that different from its prior incarnation.
Once you can see it you can hardly stop seeing it.
Why in the hell are we even listening to religious fools?
Obviously debates that effect society and its people need to be done by intellectuals who are up to date with modern understandings.
This preacher was able to announce some shocking words in our history that are in no way agreeable today. The punch line that we have moved on from the churches previous stance is not being heard by all.
If religious followers still want to place segregation in peoples love for each other no matter what their sex or ethnicity or any other differences they may have, then we can disregard any of these religious ridiculous fools from the start.
MikeS,
Paulus is a strange figure, the little I know.
He refers to himself as afflicted. Shall we speculate it belongs to the “sins” he condemned? Surely a physical one would not be worthy of mention, and one he would admit it was not.
LJC,
I knew there was an answer. It was unlike you. Thanks.
Thanks for pointing it out because I don’t want to seem like I am on the wrong side. ((*_*)) Glad I went back and lostened.
Idealist for some reason I dont like to watch videos so i did not watch to the end, thght appalling enough I did not need to bother. That’ll hopefully teach me. With that ending my comment was aboslutely not what I would have thought or said had I bothered to go the extra minute
God seems pretty small if he really cares about stuff like whether people trim the corners of their beards, or wear wool and linen mixed fabrics, or for that matter, touch the genitals of someone of the same sex. Why does God communicate to humanity his wishes regarding the uses of genitalia but remain completely silent on issues like the deployment of nuclear weapons?
Oro Lee,
Your words in earlier blogs have always marked you as special. Today you have topped it in spades.
Your last twenty years have shown that you have not wasted your time here. Good luck in your search, seriously said even though I am of the other persuasion. There is no god who relates to me as
a person, to earth as a special planet, nor the solar system—-all the way up. “All is loneliness….”, as New York’s blind “Viking” sang on the streets there.
Religion is in my eyes a control device, not one to guide us ethically (which it does poorly), nor give us a promise of heaven if we bow our heads to our secular leaders or God himself, to be given something better that this hell on earth. Now in the name of religion many evils of obvious nature are now committed, but I do not accuse you for others failings.
I would rather believe that we can grow to find truths about ourselves, and that we can become my ideal which GeneH expressed, and I have constantly sought. Cooperation, not competition through unjust means.
This is offered as a personal essay, and in no way an accusation of you in any way. A good man turning over rocks or wherever he searchs should be encouraged.
He is doing no mischief—-for the moment.
As we sit around the campfire, regarding the heavens, we should strive to help each other and to improve things and ourselves, without destroying our mother, the earth. Myths do have power, the concept of a great Spirit is comforting, and myths are created daily by Karl Rove, Shell Oil, Chase Manhattan, etc. to mislead us ans GeneH, MikeS and others have written here. But searching for an ultimate wisdom outside of yourself and other humans is not my way to go, nor do I believe it to be the best of alternatives.
Again, good luck. And keep us informed. You are always welcome whether as prodigal son or other form.
Postcards from foreign places are always inspiring, even solely the effort of the traveler inspires.
Oro Lee,
All your comments were eloquently stated and uplifting. That at a later stage of life you are willing to keep finding/re-examining beliefs marks you as a wise person. The concept of “Free Will” which intertwines with your comments is one that many supposedly religious people miss. Without “Free Will” the concept of God must be that of a Cosmic Puppeteer, animating us for its own amusement and playing out a pre-conceived story.
This is really a degrading view of any Deity. If we are to be judged by a higher authority then we must be given rein to behave as we are by nature and in the end repentance must not be seen as a “get out of jail free” card, or living a moral/ethical life would have o meaning.
Thank you too, for your needed work with and for Native Americans, for they truly have been badly mistreated and even worse misunderstood and denigrated.
Regarding TED and Nick Hanuer:
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/07/mythology-and-the-new-feudalism/
I had been alerted to watch and listen to the end so I don’t know if I would have gotten his point by hearing him out or not. What I do see is a number of regular commenters who weren’t willing to hear him out before judging him and the city. Then, they went back and got the message.
Perhaps it is because this is my home town (although I haven’t lived there since 1957) and where some of my family live, but the repetitious characterizations of the people and politics of the area, as if there were nothing more to be said of them strikes me as the same kind of “not hearing out” that happened with the video. Yes, there are some genuine no doubt about it rednecks in SW Missouri and they, along with many who are not rednecks at all, are conservatives and from generations long Republican families. Still there is much reason for the kind of people who appreciate Professor Turley’s blog to distinguish themselves by a more careful and thorough reading and understanding than sweeping characterizations permit.
Oro said, “I find something abhorrent about a political party or any organized religion, and something deviant in its members, the foundations of whose social policies seem to be determined by running around with its nose stuck up peoples’ crotches.”
There is a lot about groups psychology that is disturbing, but that’s certainly true about both our political parties and organized religion. One of the more troubling aspects that bothers me is that groups breed what is known as social loafing, i.e. the individual contributions grow proportionately less the larger the group size because responsibility becomes diffuse. If we could over come this tendency? We might be able to cross the threshold from a competitive species to a cooperative species. While becoming a cooperative species instead of a competitive species would solve many of our problems, it wouldn’t and couldn’t solve them all, but it would certainly enhance the survivability chance for the species. Tribal fighting (also a reflection of group psychology) over ever scarcer resources will probably be the death of us all.
Thank you, Gene.
As far as time goes, I don’t think I’ll have much to spare if I hope to finish the Bellah book by the end of November. I’m afraid it is at the edge of capacity of understanding. And long, too.
I meant to give a plug in my first missive to the following movie: Bless Me, Ultima.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYj3vazkDMc
With respect to the second, I had an aside about organized religion which I also think applies to the Republican part but there wasn’t a good place to put it — so here goes.
I find something abhorrent about a political party or any organized religion, and something deviant in its members, the foundations of whose social policies seem to be determined by running around with its nose stuck up peoples’ crotches.
Finally, I beleiveMike once mentioned that religion’s policies re women exist to reinforce the idea that they are but chattle property of their families.
I think it may be worse than that. I believe groups of folks in our society are going atavistic and that these abusive policies are designed — albeit unwittingly — to keep certain segments of our population on the lower rungs. Good girls from good families can easily obtain necessary contraceptives and the morning after pill, it just takes money — it’s the girls of poverty who can’t and thus will be forced to have that baby or to visit some back alley quack. Of course the mother and her children who might have competed with the good girl’s children will remain mired in poverty.
I don’t know, Oro. That all sounded pretty enlightened to me. I hope you find what you are looking for and don’t be a stranger. Take the time you need and know that as long as JT keeps the doors open, we’ll leave a light on for you.
Despite the previous comment, I still number myself among the evangelical Christians of the Southern Baptist Association persuasion. In fact I am a Democrat and a civil rights advocate because of the theology of Southern Baptists, These scripture verses – John 3:16; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23; Romans 10:9; Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 11:6; Hebrews 11:1 – are the basis of my democratic, freedom loving ideals and are not offered not for the truth of the matter asserted, but merely to explain their impact on the basis of my political leanings.
These verses indicate that the most important decision I can make, the one with eternal consequences, is whether to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. No one can make that decision for me. As a self-aware person, it’s all up to me.
And God, because I can’t make that decision without God-given faith. Nothing else works, only faith and only the kind that God can give me. It’s a gift, free for the taking. I can take it or leave it. So, yeah, it is really all up to me.
And every person who has lived or ever will live must make the same decision, in their own way given the facts and circumstances of their own life situation. But the deal is freely offered to each one. And the decision is up to each person.
My take-away? God treats everyone the same. God gives everyone ultimate say over their lives. One man, one vote. But God doesn’t force the outcome. That’s Democratic.
If God is going to let me and everyone else make up our own minds and decide for our own selves this most important of all decisions, then to the greatest extent possible I should let everyone else make up their own minds about the things that affect their lives. I can help and even freely provide the means to enable a person to make a good decision – for example, I can offer on a take it or leave basis good family planning resources such as sex education and contraceptives, but the woman has the ultimate say so over her body. That’s Liberty.
And it all hinges on God-given faith, which means that if Christians are to remain true to the clear teaching of scripture and to their faith, they must always humbly admit that they can be wrong about the whole shebang. Baptists have a [anti-works] saying, faith plus anything is anything but faith. If something, like the existence of God, can be proven then wherefore faith?
Mark Twain wrote something along the lines that it was a school boy who said that faith is believing in something that you know ain’t so. That might be a little over the line, but it is probably fair to say that Christian faith is unwarranted belief in something for which there is no proof. If it can be proven, . . .
I remain a evangelical Christian because in its best traditions, it is about loving others – meeting needs that cannot otherwise be met even if it means sharing from our poverty.and encouraging others to do likewise. I remain an evangelical Christian because on its best days, it’s RADICAL. Passersby stop, mouths agape, and exclaim, “See how they love one another.”
But I could be wrong.
Gene:
Thank you for referring to me as a friend. I feel the same about many of you on this blog. I never would have coined “Alsoranistan,” but, thanks to you, I spend it for all its worth!
The “enlightened” part is a bit over the top. I’m really just struggling, trying to debarnacle myself of well over half a century of religious indoctrination.
This is the first of two rather lengthy posts and they are both all about me. Mea culpa, but I have been scarce around these parts the past few weeks and won’t be able to post as frequently for some time to come so I don’t feel too bad about taking these liberties. More pertinent for fellow readers is that my lack of time for this blog is a direct result of being involved on this blog. The writings and suggestions of kindred spirits have prompted a self-edification process that undoubtedly is going to revamp my thinking about God and religion. How the hell does that happen to an old man? I want to share that with said kindred spirits.
It all started about 20 years ago with a new client – a southwest Indian tribe.
Nothing in my education, training, or life experiences prepared me for the job – it was all OJT and I was way behind the curve. I neither sought nor wanted the assignment and agreed only because it was “temporary” work. I did the best I could, uncritically accumulating and absorbing whatever I needed to get up to speed and get the job done.
As I served Indian tribes and their members over the years, two things happened. First, I realized what I and other folks like me thought we knew about Indians was just plain wrong.. I now tell people that if all they know about Indians is what they learned in public K-12 then they don’t know Squanto – they don’t know that Tisquantum (aka “Squanto”) visited Europe on two occasions before meeting the Pilgrims and that he taught them European – not Native American – methods of farming. I’ve made it a personal interest to de-mythologize our historical understanding of Native Americans
At the same time I became more reflective of the genesis of federal Indian law — the extreme racism, Eurocentrist superiority, and even self-dealing in the seminal Supreme Court cases that to this day undergird this area of jurisprudence. This mindset warranted the Court’s adoption and creation of even more myths to justify wag-the-dog-opinions granting the greatest civilization of the Americas such powers as needed to deal with native savages obstructing its manifest destiny. You think Citizen United was bad? – it’s just a little taste of what regularly befalls Indian tribes. I’ve made it a professional interest to de-mythologize legal precedents pertaining to Native Americans.
It is my good fortune that at this late stage of my life, my personal and professional interests are now one.
The second thing that happened as I became aware of those attitudes which created and sustain the myths justifying the conquest and continued subjugation of Native Americans is that I became aware of the same attitudes in another important area of my life – my religion. The same mindset that I was finding in our courts I was finding in my church. The evermore apparent self-righteous delusions and rank hypocrisy among my own tribe, evangelical Christians, unmoored me from blind allegiance and awakened me to the dangers of Christian myths.
I no longer believe many of the things that I first believed about Native Americans.
I no longer believe many of the things that I first believed about the Supreme Court.
I no longer believe many of the things that I first believed about my religion, but I’m not really sure what to do about that!
I am fortunate that I am familiar with primal (“primal” as in first, not primitive) culture – it is inappropriate to refer to primal religions for there is no real distinction between what we would call religion and other life activities for such cultures.
I have studied general works pertaining to primal culture – as well as those specific to the southwest Indians. I followed that with Mike Spindell’s suggestion that I read Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Since then I have read naturalistic theories of the creation and evolution of religion, finishing off this week with Daniel C. Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.” I hope to read Robert N. Bellah’s, “Religion in Human Evolution, From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age,” by the end of November
This is a new path and I don’t know where it will end, but I have a preliminary feel for the lay of the land:
I am not willing to declare that there is or is not a God – I certainly have doubts about the God of the Abrahamic traditions.
Regardless of whether there is a God, I am not willing to declare that on the whole religion is a good or bad thing.
I am willing to say that it is possible and maybe even probable that whatever great truths of human nature and the place of humans on this planet may underlie religions, the farther the religion has moved from its primal origins the more likely those truths are unrecognizable if they even continue to exist.
That last possibility alone is enough to spur me on in service of Native American communities – for the good of all humanity.
Want to become an internet person? Want to be modern.
Then specialize in “watching” some question that interests you, at whatever level or subject you like.
And spread whatever that needs a summary, a newsflash, a viral item, a loss for the moneyed (seldom) or a win for the 99% (seldom).
Use your time and your skills to acquire more skills and become an internet reporter to JT’s to begin with.
Be it oil depletion allowances, corporations impeding EPA functions, destroying our education system, our paying via our taxes for exportation of American jobs,
the Pacific Free Trade Agreement which will allow international corps to control what has been areas of governent sovereignty, the World’s Bank policies and actions, etc, etc.
Become an extension of Elaine Magliaro. You don’t have to write to do a significant report. Elaine would be glad for the chance to help—-as long as there is media space here at JT’s.
My suggestion to the Professor is that we can eventually establish a permanent weekend blog (if the interest and report volume motivates it) for “reports from the net”, or some other way to let readers get a wider range of news.
Not law, you object. It bloody well is.
They use law to get what they want; be it tax rebates or agrobusiness crop supports.
Readers? Poténtial reporters? Professor?
Whaddaya say?
From the eternal activist.
THE BATTLE WITH THE ONE-PERCENTERS, chapter Hanauer
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There are as usual several more themes to be found in the TEC versus Hanauer story. TED does good work, it makes money off its frequent worldwide staged conferences.
And like all successful channels, it wants to make more and may well accept money from those who wish to guide its program choices, and its info spreading actions.
The reception which Hanauer got was enthusiastic but mild in comparison to what most top mini-speechs receive.
This reception shows it was not popular with many in the audience. All in the audience are essentially old or mostly new moneyed folks. People with money like to believe they are “deserving” of success, a point Hanauer made. In fact, to summarize him, you are either an insider or you are a luckily placed outsider in time, place or connections—-and maybe, just maybe a good entrepreneur….. If the latter, come back and tell me how many winners you’ve “made” in the meantime.
This is one explanation of how TED works, how our society controls info flow, and why/how we are steered.
It’s a pain to have to search for snippets of real news, to search the Guardian, RT, your favo anti-system channel, etc.
But MSM is totally, repeat, TOTALLY dependent on the powers that pay them via ads; and powers which collude with other ad buyers. AND the powers that pay are however dependent on whoever is in the majority position—-even if it is a democrat regime.
They will lobby the official powers, and will need the medias’ support in that task. So they will support with the admin when the admin/congress supports their line, and also quieten the medias voice, suppressing what we need to know otherwise.
Sorry it takes a while to get my message across. Hope it was worth reading.