Month: November 2012

Bradley Manning Mistreated by Military, Psychiatrist Says

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Bradley Manning, Military Abuse

WikiLeaks suspect Manning mistreated by military, psychiatrist says

Bradley Manning was held in solitary confinement despite expert’s claim he was no longer a suicide risk

Ed Pilkington in Fort Meade, Maryland

Bradley Manning

WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning should not have been held in such harsh conditions, his psychiatrist says. Photograph: AP

The psychiatrist who treated the WikiLeaks suspect, Bradley Manning, while he was in custody in the brig at Quantico has testified that his medical advice was regularly ignored by marine commanders who continued to impose harsh conditions on the soldier even though he posed no risk of suicide.

Captain William Hoctor told Manning’s pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade that he grew frustrated and angry at the persistent refusal by marine officers to take on board his medical recommendations. The forensic psychiatrist said that he had never experienced such an unreceptive response from his military colleagues, not even when he treated terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo.

“I had been a senior medical officer for 24 years at the time, and I had never experienced anything like this. It was clear to me they had made up their mind on a certain cause of action, and my recommendations had no impact,” Hoctor said.

The psychiatrist was testifying at Manning’s court martial for allegedly being the source of the massive leak of hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The 24-year-old soldier, who worked as an intelligence analyst until his arrest in Iraq in May 2010, faces 22 counts and possible life in military custody.

Manning’s defence lawyers are attempting to have the charges thrown out or any eventual sentence reduced by seeking to prove that the soldier was subjected to unlawful pre-trial punishment at Quantico. During the nine months he was in custody at the marine base in Virginia he was put on suicide watch and a “prevention of injury” order, or PoI, that kept him in solitary confinement and exposed him to extreme conditions that were denounced by the UN and Amnesty International as a form of torture.

Hoctor began treating Manning from the day after he arrived at Quantico on 29 July 2010, seeing him initially every day and then later once a week. At first he recommended that the soldier be put on suicide watch – the most stringent form of custody – given that he had mentioned killing himself while previously held in Kuwait and that nooses that he had made were found in his cell.

But within a week of seeing Manning he changed his recommendation, reporting to officers that in his medical opinion the soldier could be put on the lesser PoI status. His advice was ignored for a couple of weeks, Hoctor told the court. “At Quantico they often did not immediately follow, or sometimes did not follow at all, my recommendations.”

The failure to act on the doctor’s recommendation was an apparent violation of the instructions under which marine installations operate. The regulations state that “when prisoners are no longer considered to be suicide risks by a medical officer, they shall be returned to appropriate quarters.”

By 27 August 2010, Hoctor testified, he had spent enough time with Manning to recommend a further easing of conditions. From then on he advised in a regular weekly report that Manning should be taken off PoI altogether and returned to the general brig population.

“I was satisfied he no longer presented a risk. He did not appear to be persistently depressed, he was not reporting suicidal thoughts, in general he was well behaved.”

Specifically, Hoctor was convinced that Manning no longer needed to be subjected to restrictive conditions that included: no contact with other people, being kept in his cell for more than 23 hours a day, being checked every five minutes, sleeping on a suicide mattress with no bedding, having his prescription glasses taken away, lights kept on at night, having toilet paper removed.

Only on two occasions did Hoctor report that Manning appeared upset and should be put temporarily under close observation. The first incident occurred in December 2010 when Fox News erroneously reported that Manning had died, and the second in January 2011 when the soldier broke down in tears while in the exercise room.

Yet the psychiatrist’s recommendation that other than these isolated incidents Manning should be treated like other inmates was consistently ignored. The soldier was kept on PoI throughout the rest of his time at Quantico.

The blanket denial of his expert opinion was unprecedented in his quarter century of practice, the psychiatrist said. “Even when I did tours in Guantanamo and cared for detainees there my recommendations on suicidal behaviour were followed.”

Hoctor said he openly protested about the thwarting of his expert opinion at a meeting with the commander responsible for the brig, Colonel Robert Oltman, on 13 January 2011. At the meeting Oltman informed the doctor that Manning would be kept on PoI “for the forseeable future”.

Hoctor said that the marine commanders should no longer pretend they were acting out of medical concern for the detainee. “It wasn’t good for Manning. I really didn’t like them using a psychiatric standard when I thought it clinically inappropriate,” Hoctor said.

The court heard that Oltman replied: “You make your recommendations, and we’ll do what we want to do.”

Earlier the court martial heard from Oltman himself, who told the judge presiding over the proceedings, Colonel Denise Lind, that he had chosen to overlook Hoctor’s advice because he didn’t fully trust the doctor. A few months before Manning arrived at Quantico, an inmate of the brig, Captain Michael Webb, had killed himself while under Hoctor’s care.

“I did not have the utmost confidence in Captain Hoctor,” Oltman testified.

When that lack of trust was put to Hoctor by Manning’s defence lawyer, David Coombs, the psychiatrist replied: “If they felt that way they should have got another person to do the job.”

Despite the unprecedented conditions that Manning was held under, Hoctor said the detainee coped quite well. “Most people would have found it very difficult, being watched every five minutes, but he did better than expected – I think he decided he was going to be strong.”

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Hate Peddlers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencers Euro-Fascist Buddy Stephen Lennon Charged with Mortgage Fraud

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Fascism, Fascist, Fascists, Fascists & Zionists, Jewish Crazies, Jewish Extremists, Jewish Fascist Pamela Geller, Jewish Hatemonger, Robert Spencer, Robert Spencer Catholic Fascist, Robert Spencer Hate Monger

EDL Leader Stephen Lennon Charged with Mortgage Fraud

EDL leader Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) has been charged with multiple counts of mortgage fraud. So on top of being an anti-Muslim bigot and all around Islamophobe he’s also a suspected criminal who loves committing fraud through the tactic of false representation.

These charges are separate from the investigation relating to Yaxley-Lennon’s prosecution and (current incarceration) for illegally entering the US to attend Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s conference in New York in September 2012. (h/t: Jai)

EDL leader Stephen Lennon charged with mortgage fraud

(BBCNews)

Stephen Lennon, 30, is accused of three counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in relation to a mortgage application.

Mr Lennon is due before St Albans Magistrates Court on 7 December.

He will appear with five others, from Luton, Silsoe in Bedfordshire and Watford, who were arrested as part of the same investigation.

They face charges including fraud, money-laundering and possession of drugs with intent to supply.

One wonders about the silence of the Yaxley-Lennon’s US partners Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. No doubt they will continue their defense of the EDL leader and claim he is being persecuted due to politically correct multiculti influenced Sharia.

Related Posts

–EDL leader charged with mortgage fraud (LutonNews)

–EDL Leader Charged With Fraud (HopeNotHate)

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Pope Ratzinger a Nazi Pedophile? Stop The Catholic Church From Raping Our Children

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Predators, Catholic Priests, Nazi Pope

Pope Ratzinger a Nazi Pedophile? Stop The Catholic Church From Raping Our Children

Via truelogic

The exhibit below depicts the Pope as a Nazi pedophile, and some folk ain’t happy with it.

The sculpture is a three-and-a-half metre tall stylised image of the Ratzinger in a state of sexual arousal with his hand firmly on the shoulder of two little boys. It has also been embellished with a Swastika-style crucifix.

The Catholic Church has a history of molesting children and supporting the Nazi’s.  The Pope thinks he and his church is untouchable while they hide their immoral acts from the world.  Time for them to be held accountable.

Below, A Christmas Gift for your favorite Christian:

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Why Did IRA Terrorist Enabler and Catholic Bigot Peter King Get To Chair Anything?!

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Islamophobes, Islamophobia, Islamophobia Industry, Islamophobic Conspiracies, Islamophobic Paranoia, Peter King, Peter King IRA Supporter

King is a long-time supporter of the IRA, and in the 1980s proclaimed: “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.”

On Muslims, King has reached his own fact-less conclusion

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will begin holding hearings Thursday on “the extent of the radicalization of American Muslims.” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has characterized the hearings as “a witch hunt.” Are they?

King also has said he believes the “self-radicalization” of American Muslims represents “a very small minority” of the overall community. What are the potential consequences of singling out one religious group?

All one needs to know about what is behind the King hearings can be gleaned by Peter King’s own statements regarding Muslims in the US.

How does Rep. King feel about Islam in the United States?

“Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully. We should be finding out how we can infiltrate [them].

How does King know so much about radicalization in the US? From a single source more than decade ago.

“The only real testimony we have on it is from Sheikh Kabbani who was a Muslim leader during the Clinton Administration, he testified back in 1999 and 2000 before the State Department that he thought over 80 percent of the mosques in this country are controlled by radical Imams. Certainly from what I’ve seen and dealings I’ve had, that number seems accurate.”

King’s single source, Sheikh Kabbani, is a Sufi Muslim who has advocated for peace and tolerance in Islam but who by his own admission is not an authority on Islam in America and who has admitted to simply stating his personal opinion – an opinion that has been contradicted by both the FBI and by every scholar who has studied the matter. Oh, and by the way, Sheikh Kabbani has also claimed that any Muslim who advises the US government is also “an extremist.” But King is not interested in facts. He just feels like it must be at least 80%.

“It was 80 percent back in 2000. Based on the radicalization since then, it has to be — I have no doubt, I have problem at all in saying it’s 85 percent. If it’s not 85, it’s still 80.”

And King has reliable sources to back up his feeling.

“I can get you the documentation on that from experts in the field. Talk to a Steve Emerson… It’s a real issue … I’ll stand by that number of 85 percent. This is an enemy living amongst us.”

That’s Steve Emerson, the “expert in the field” who has turned Islamophobia into a multi-million dollar career. Emerson has been caught in so many lies and distortions that the media watchdog group Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting (FAIR) has devoted an entire page to debunking his wild and exaggerated accusations. In an in-depth report of his writings, FAIR concludes that, “Emerson’s willingness to push an extremely thin story–with potentially explosive consequences–is… consistent with the lengthy list of mistakes and distortions that mar his credentials as an expert on terrorism.”

Of course, King could try to speak to American Muslims himself. But it seems he has already reached his own, fact-less conclusions.

“I think there’s been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community. And it’s a real threat here in this country.” … They won’t turn in their own. They won’t tell what’s going on in the mosques. They won’t come forward and cooperate with the police.”

That comes as a surprise to the authorities King claims to be assisting with these hearings. “If he has evidence of non-cooperation, he should bring it forward,” says Los Angeles County’s Sheriff Lee Baca. “We have as much cooperation as we are capable of acquiring through public trust relationships.”

Perhaps all of this explains why even conservative outlets like the National Interest have criticized King’s hearings. The National Interest wrote, “The hearings should never take place, but if they do, the real promoter of anti-Americanism at home and abroad will be Rep. King.”

The bottom line is that King’s hearings were not about making Americans safer. They are about promoting his personal views about Islam and Muslims in the U.S. As such they lend false legitimacy to the anti-Islam hate groups that have flourished in the U.S. since 9/11. We saw a glimpse of this zealotry and hatred recently, when a large group of tea party protesters in Orange County surrounded a Muslim group’s fundraiser yelling obscenities and shouting “Go Back Home!” to the Muslims walking to and from the event. The scene looked much like a chapter of American history that most Americans reflect on with shame. The fact that a representative of Congress held hearings that could lend legitimacy to this type of bigotry is shocking.

Dr. Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is a contributing editor at The Daily Beast

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Are Factory Farming’s Days Numbered?

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Animal Cruelty, Factory Farming

Good News For Animal Lovers: Factory Farming’s Days May Be Numbered

Two major grocery chains are ditching factory farmed meat — will the changes cause a ripple effect?

 

Photo Credit: © koko-tewan/ Shutterstock.com

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

In one of history’s most stunning victories for humane farming, Australia’s largest supermarket chain, Coles, will as of January 1 stop selling company branded pork and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. As an immediate result, 34,000 mother pigs will no longer be kept in stalls for long periods of their lives, and 350,000 hens will be freed from cages.

Not to be outdone, the nation’s other dominant supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory farmed animal products. In fact all of Woolworth’s house brand eggs are now cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who operate stall-free farms.

Coles and Woolworths together account for a dominant 80 percent of all supermarket sales in Australia.

The move to open up the cages was fueled by “consumer sentiment,” and it has been synchronous with amajor campaign against factory farming of animals led by Animals Australia. The campaign features a TV ad, titled “When Pigs Fly,” in which an adorable piglet tells the story of animals sentenced to life in cramped cages, and then flies to freedom.

Meanwhile, in the United States, egg factory farms cram more than 90 percent of the country’s 280 million egg-laying hens into barren cages so small the birds can’t even spread their wings. Each bird spends her entire life given less space than a sheet of paper. And in a reality that does not please fans of Wilber or Babe, between 60 to 70 percent of the more than five million breeding pigs in the United States are kept in crates too small for them to so much as turn around.

There are laws against cruelty to animals in the United States, but most states specifically exempt animals destined for human consumption. The result is that the animal agriculture industry routinely does things to animals that, if you did them to a dog or a cat, would get you put in jail.

Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, explains: “Most of the anti-cruelty laws exempt farm animals as long as the practices are considered to be normal by the agriculture industry. What has happened is that bad has become normal, and no matter how cruel it is, normal is legal.”

But here, too, change is coming. Undercover investigations have led to a $497 million judgment against the now defunct Hallmark Meat Packing company, and to the recent temporary shutdown of Central Valley Meat Company over what federal investigators termed “egregious, inhumane handling and treatment of livestock.” California and Michigan have passed laws that will phase in a ban on battery cages for hens, andnine U.S. states have joined the entire European Union in heading towards a ban on confining pigs in gestation crates.

Worried that consumers are starting to find out the truth about treatment of modern farm animals and will demand further changes, industry leaders are pushing for “ag gag” laws that would hide factory farming and slaughterhouse abuses from public scrutiny. Recently passed laws in Iowa and Utah threaten jail time for anyone working undercover and taking pictures or video of animals in factory farms without permission.

What don’t they want us to know? What are they trying to hide? What would happen if the veil was lifted and we saw the level of cruelty that has become the norm in U.S. industrial meat production?

A poll conducted by Lake Research partners found that 94 percent of Americans agree that animals raised for food on farms deserve to be free from abuse and cruelty, and that 71 percent of Americans support undercover investigative efforts by animal welfare organizations to expose animal abuse on industrial farms.

Most farmers don’t try to be cruel to animals, but they do worry about how to cut costs. And so long as consumers are kept in the dark about the real source of their food, farm owners have no economic incentive to do more than the minimum necessary to appease regulatory authorities.

Want to take action? Join the Food Revolution Network, an online community dedicated to healthy, sustainable, humane and delicious food for all.

Or join the Humane Society’s campaign for farm animal protection, or Farm Sanctuary’s work for animal welfare legislation. Or if you want to save 100 animals per year, you can sign up for PETA’s free veg starter kit.

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‘Happy Atheist’ Ricky Gervais Rewrites Pat Robertson

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Pat Robertson, Pat Robertson is a Kook, Ricky Gervais

‘Happy atheist’ Ricky Gervais rewrites Pat Robertson
By Nick Ramsey
Video here:-

On the latest edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell relied on some wise words from comedian Ricky Gervais to rewrite some less-than-wise words from religious television host Pat Robertson.

In a recent edition of his show, The 700 Club, Robertson accused atheists of trying to ruin the Christmas holiday:

“Well, it’s Christmas all over again. Uh, the Grinch is trying to steal our holiday… Atheists don’t like our happiness. They don’t want you to be happy, they want you to be miserable. They’re miserable so they want you to be miserable. So they want to steal your holiday away from you.”

That flies in the face of something comedian Ricky Gervais, a vocal atheist, wrote about Christmas two years back. Just before Christmas in 2010, Gervais wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal explaining his atheism.

Gervais also wrote a follow-up three days later taking questions from Wall Street Journal readers. It is from that second post that O’Donnell found the right words to rewrite Pat Robertson’s claims on atheists who “want to steal” Christmas from Christians. Gervais wrote that he celebrates Christmas in the following way:

Celebrating life and remembering those that did, but can no longer… They are not looking down on me but they live in my mind and heart more than they ever did probably. Some, I was lucky enough to bump into on this planet of six billion people. Others shared much of my genetic material. One selflessly did her best for me all my life. That’s what mums do though. They do it for no other reason than love.

Gervais ended his piece by wishing “Peace to all mankind. Christian, Jew, Muslim and Atheist.” That led to O’Donnell’s conclusion, “the happy atheist Ricky Gervais is actually more Christ-like than the Reverend Pat Robertson.”

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50 Reasons to Boycott the Catholic Church

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Boycott Catholicism, Catholic Fascism, Catholic Regressive, Catholic Theocracy

50 Reasons to Boycott the Catholic Church

The Church uses its resources to oppose social progress and positive change all over the world.

 

Photo Credit: AFP

Last month in Ireland, Savita Halappanavar died, and she shouldn’t have. Savita was a 31-year-old married woman, four months pregnant, who went to the hospital with a miscarriage in progress that developed into a blood infection. She could easily have been saved if the already doomed fetus was aborted. Instead, her doctors did nothing, explaining that “this is a Catholic country,” and left her to suffer in agony for days, only intervening once it was too late.

Savita’s death is just the latest in a long line of tragedies directly attributable to the doctrines and beliefs of the Roman Catholic church. I acknowledge that there are many good, progressive Catholics, but the problem is that the church isn’t a democracy, and those progressives have no voice or vote in its governance. The church is a petrified oligarchy, a dictatorship like the medieval monarchies it once existed alongside, and it’s run by a small circle of conservative, rigidly ideological old men who make all the decisions and choose their own successors.

This means that, whatever individual Catholics may do, the resources of the church as an institution are bent toward opposing social progress and positive change all over the world. Every dollar you put into the church collection plate, every Sunday service you attend, every hour of time and effort you put into volunteering or working for church organizations, is inevitably a show of support for the institutional church and its abhorrent mission. When you have no voice, there’s only one thing left to do: boycott. Stop supporting the church with your money and your time. For lifelong Catholics, it’s a drastic step, but it’s more than justified by the wealth of reasons showing that the church as an institution is beyond reform, and the only meaningful response is to part ways with it. Here are just a few of those reasons:

1. Throughout the world, Catholic bishops have engaged in a systematic, organized effort going back decades to cover up for priests who molest children, pressuring the victims to sign confidentiality agreements and quietly assigning the predators to new parishes where they could go on molesting. Tens of thousands of children have been raped and tortured as a result of this conspiracy of silence.

2. Strike one: “What did the pope know and when did he know it?” The current pope, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was personally implicated in a case from the 1970s in which at least three sets of parents reported that a priest in his diocese had sexually abused their children. In response, Ratzinger assigned the priest to therapy, without notifying law enforcement, and washed his hands of the matter. That priest was back on duty in just a few short days and went on to molest more children.

3. Strike two: In 1981, again when the current pope was Cardinal Ratzinger, he got a letter from the diocese of Oakland asking him to defrock a priest who had acknowledged molesting two children. Ratzinger ignored this letter, and several followup letters, for four years. Finally, in 1985, he wrote back saying that more time was needed, and that they had to proceed very slowly to safeguard “the good of the Universal Church” in light of “the young age of the petitioner” — by which he meant not the victimized children, but the pedophile priest. (By contrast, when a rogue archbishop ordained married men as priests, he was laicized six days later.)

4. Strike three: In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter, De Delictis Gravioribus, to all Catholic bishops advising them how to handle accusations of sex crimes by priests. There was no recommendation to contact the police, but rather an instruction for them to report such cases only to the Vatican and tell no one else: “Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret.”

5. Some church officials, like the American friar Benedict Groeschel, have blamed the epidemic of child molestation on sexually wanton boys who tempt priests into assaulting them.

6. They threaten to cut off funding for immigrants’ rights advocates because they sometimes work with gay-rights advocates. Preventing immigrants from getting legal and medical aid is less important than ensuring the church isn’t contaminated by even indirect contact with anyone who helps gay people.

7. In a sign of how ridiculously disproportionate and unhinged the church’s martyrdom complex is, the current pope has compared expanding the rights of women and gay people to the murderous anticlerical violence of the 1930s Spanish civil war.

8. They’ve used their official UN observer status to team up with Islamic theocracies like Iran and Libya to oppose calls for family-planning services to be made available in the world’s poorest nations.

9. They’ve gone to desperately poor, AIDS-ravaged regions of Africa to spread the life-destroying lie that condoms don’t prevent transmission of HIV.

10. In the mid-20th century, they appointed a special papal commission to study whether Catholicism should permit the use of birth control. When the commission almost unanimously recommended that they should, they ignored that recommendation and doubled down on their absolute ban on contraception.

11. They excommunicated the doctors who performed an abortion on a pregnant 9-year-old who’d been raped by her stepfather.

12. They did not excommunicate the stepfather.

13. Savita Halappanavar wasn’t the first: Catholic-run hospitals are willing to let women die rather than get lifesaving abortions, even when a miscarriage is already in progress and no possible procedure could save the fetus.

14. They refused to provide contraception or abortion to women who were abducted and forced to work as prostitutes, and then filed a lawsuit complaining it was violating their religious freedom when the government took away their contract.

15. In Poland, they ordered politicians to vote for a law banning IVF and threatened to excommunicate any who didn’t comply.

16. They were a major source of the pressure on the Komen Foundation that led to its disastrous decision to cut ties with Planned Parenthood.

17. They’ve announced an inquisition into the Girl Scouts to get to the bottom of its association with morally suspect groups like Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam.

18. They’ve been one of the major forces attacking Obamacare, filing lawsuits arguing that non-church Catholic employers should be able to decide whether or not employee health insurance plans will cover contraception. This is effectively an argument that a woman’s employer should be allowed to force her to pay more for medical coverage, or even place it out of her reach altogether, based on his religious beliefs.

19. In Australia, they allegedly derailed a police investigation of an accused pedophile, putting pressure on higher-ups to get an investigating officer removed from the case.

20. They demanded that Sunday school teachers sign a loyalty oath agreeing to submit “will and intellect” to the proclamations of church leaders.

21. Some top church officials, including the current pope, have advocated denying communion to politicians who support progressive and pro-choice political ideas. Notably, although the church also opposes preemptive war and the death penalty, no conservative politician has ever been denied communion on this basis.

22. They’ve cracked down on American nuns for doing too much to help the poor and not enough to oppose gay marriage, condemning them for displaying a seditious “feminist spirit.”

23. In Germany, where parishioners pay an officially assessed tax rate to the church, they’ve tried to blackmail people who don’t want to pay the church tax, threatening to fire them from jobs in church institutions. In some cases, if the person opts out but later loses the paperwork, they demand on-the-spot repayment of decades of back taxes.

24. In America, bishops have compared Democratic officeholders, including President Obama, to Hitler and Stalin and have said that it jeopardizes a person’s eternal salvation if they don’t vote as the bishops instruct them to.

25. They fight against equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. It’s not enough for the Catholic church hierarchy that they refuse to perform church weddings for gay and lesbian couples; they want to write that prohibition into the civil law and deny marriage equality to everyone who doesn’t fit their religious criteria, and have invested vast amounts of money and effort into doing so. In the 2012 election cycle alone, the church spent almost $2 million in an unsuccessful fight to defeat marriage-equality initiatives in four states.

26. They’ve compared gay sex to pedophilia and incest and called for it to be forbidden by law, saying that “states can and must regulate behaviors, including various sexual behaviors.”

27. They’ve shut down adoption clinics rather than consider gay people as prospective parents. The church’s official position, apparently, is that it’s better for children to remain orphans or in foster care than to be placed in a loving, committed same-sex household.

28. They barred an anti-LGBT bullying group, anti-teen-suicide foundation from a Catholic school ceremony, explaining that the group’s mission is “contrary to the teachings of the Catholic church.”

29. They told a teenager he wouldn’t be allowed to go through confirmation because he posted a pro-gay-rights status message on Facebook, and they expelled a preschooler from a private Catholic school because his parents were lesbians.

30. They have a history of dumping known pedophile priests in isolated, poor, rural communities, where they apparently assumed that local people wouldn’t dare to complain or that no one would listen if they did.

31. They’ve given huge payouts — as much as $20,000 in some cases — to pedophile priests, to buy their silence and quietly ease them out of the priesthood, after specifically denying in public that they were doing this.

32. When the Connecticut legislature proposed extending statute-of-limitations laws to allow older child-abuse cases to be tried, the bishops ordered a letter to be read during Mass instructing parishioners to contact their representatives and lobby against it.

33. To fight back against and intimidate abuse-survivor groups like SNAP, the church’s lawyers have filed absurdly broad subpoenas demanding the disclosure of decades’ worth of documents.

34. In the Netherlands, some boys were apparently castrated in church-run hospitals after complaining to the police about sexual abuse by priests.

35. When a Catholic official from Philadelphia, William Lynn, was charged with knowingly returning predator priests to duty, his defense was to blame those decisions on his superior, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, thus acknowledging that the corruption reaches to the highest levels of the church.

36. When confronted with hundreds of complaints about child-raping priests spanning decades, a Dutch cardinal used the same “we knew nothing” excuse once given by Nazi soldiers. Several months later, it was reported that this same cardinal had personally arranged to move a pedophile priest to a different parish to shield him from accusations.

37. In one case, Mother Teresa successfully persuaded the church to return a suspected pedophile priest to duty because he was a friend of hers. Eight additional complaints of child abuse were later lodged against him.

38. In yet another case, they appointed a priest with a history of child molestation to a board that advises the church on what to do when they get reports of priests molesting children.

39. And after all this, they’ve had the audacity to plead for money and ask parishioners to pick up the tab for legal costs and settlements.

40. They abducted tens of thousands of babies from unwed mothers who gave birth in Catholic-run hospitals all over the world throughout the 20th century, forcing drugged or helpless women to give their newborn children up for adoption against their will.

41. They tried to have the Indian skeptic Sanal Edamuruku charged with blasphemy and imprisoned for debunking a claim of a miraculous weeping statue.

42. They publicly supported the Russian Orthodox church’s decision to have the punk band Pussy Riot charged and imprisoned for blasphemy.

43. Their finances are a disorganized mess, lacking strong accounting controls and clear internal separations, which means parishioners who give to the church can have no assurance of what the money will be used for. According to an investigation by the Economist, funds meant for hospitals, cemeteries and priests’ pensions have been raided to pay legal fees and settlements in several diocesan bankruptcies.

44. They’ve said in public that the sexist prohibition on women priests is an infallible part of Catholic dogma, and hence can never be changed.

45. They’ve silenced priests who call for the ordination of women and other desperately needed reforms, exhorting them to instead show “the radicalism of obedience.”

46. They’ve excommunicated at least one priest for advocating the ordination of women.

47. They lifted the excommunication of an anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying bishop who also thinks women shouldn’t attend college or wear pants.

48. When it comes to the question of who’s financially responsible for compensating the victims of sex abuse, they argue that priests aren’t employees and therefore the church bears no responsibility for anything they do.

49. They canonized Mother Teresa for doing little more than offering a squalid place for people to die. Outside observers who visited her “Home for the Dying” reported that medical care was substandard and dangerous, limited to aspirin and unsterilized needles rinsed in tap water, administered by untrained volunteers. The millions of dollars collected by Mother Teresa and her order, enough to build many advanced clinics and hospitals, remain unaccounted for.

50. They announced that voluntary end-of-life measures, such as terminal patients’ directives for when they wish to have a feeding tube removed, won’t be respected at Catholic hospitals.

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The Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama’s Third Term

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Right Wing Kooks, Right Wing Lies, Right Wing Loons, Right Wing Nuts, White Racists, White Supremacists, Wingnut Media, Wingnuts

The Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama’s Third Term

Our Kenyan-born, secret Muslim president has apparently cooked up a sneaky plot to subvert the 22nd Amendment.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

Probably not. benson./Flickr

Barack Hussein Obama is hatching a secret plot to pull off the ultimate power grab: securing himself a third term in the White House.

At least that’s the narrative being spun by right-wing conspiracy theorists, who seem to believe Obama is modeling his presidency after fictional Nixon in Watchmen.

Among the main proponents of this theory—which comes in several different flavors—is Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a publishing firm that hawks financial advice—and has a history of promoting dubious claims. Even before the president won reelection, the company began blasting out emails to subscribers of various conservative newsletters, warning of the coming third term of Obama. The emails went out as paid advertisements through the right-leaning Townhall.com, Newsmax, Human Events, and Gingrich Marketplace (a spokesman for Newt Gingrich and the vice president of Human Events both claimed this email blast was a mistake).

The emails alerted readers to a vague—and somewhat counterintuitive—theory: Some unspecified but major event will lead to an epoch of American economic prosperity. Because it will happen under Obama’s watch, he’ll claim full credit and receive an unprecedented boost in approval ratings, giving him a mandate to demand and subsequently obtain a third term. If you’re confused, below are screenshots of two of the emails:

These messages are accompanied by a slideshow titled “The Third Term — INSIDE: The Secret Plan to Retain Power Through 2020” and narrated by Stansberry & Associates founder Frank Porter Stansberry. It discusses how Obama will become American history’s greatest tyrant, responsible for implementing “the most terrifying socialist policies” the country has ever seen. “The Third Term” also highlights the company’s supposed track record of correctly predicting the future, and invites readers to check out their trading and investing services and other pricey products.

Stansberry has something of a checkered past when it comes the claims appearing in his newsletters and online videos. In 2010, he released a similar slideshow called “End of America” (77 minutes long), in which he predicted waves of violence and tumult across the United States and the impending implosion of the American economy—an argument that contradicts the premise of “The Third Term.” In 2003, the SEC filed a complaint against him for pushing false information via his financial newsletter. In 2007, Stansberry (and his investment firm, then called Pirate Investor) was ordered by a federal court to pay $1.5 million in civil penalties and restitution. Stansberry Research did not respond to a request for comment.

Other conspiracymongers who have recently jumped on the Obama-third-term-prophecy bandwagon are radio host Alex Jones—who has featured Stansberry on his show—and birtherism promoter and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah. Over at the conservative forum Free Republic, commenters have ruminated on a related theory. In this scenario, Michelle Obama runs for president in 2016 and wins, thus allowing Barack to run the government as a shadow president. Among the first to prognosticate an Obama power grab was Rush Limbaugh, who was way ahead of the curve: He predicted a third Obama term in the summer of 2009, when the 44th president had just barely moved into the White House:

The third-term theory isn’t limited to the far right: Technorati writer Sreedhar Pillai has also mused about a possible third term, and Faheem Younus at the Washington Post‘s faith blog posted on why war with Iran could grant Obama a Roosevelt-like run.

It’s unlikely that this theory will gain much traction nationally (though the third-termers have achieved enough publicity to earn their theory derisive words from Chris Matthews on MSNBC). From a purely legal perspective, there are solid obstacles to the president achieving this alleged goal, mainly the 22nd Amendment. It plainly states:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

President Obama—who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade—likely knows this already.

“There is no  evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a  coup. It’s a  right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

But, just to double check, we asked a few experts about the Obama-third-term theory. “There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term,” David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, told Mother Jones. “Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an  insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no  evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It’s a  right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

As a thought experiment, if Obama and his political allies did want to take a stab at repealing the amendment (in a time of economic boom, or whenever), they’d be in for a political fight that would make passing the Affordable Care Act look like a stroll in the park. “As a practical matter, no constitutional amendment can occur without being supported by both major parties,” said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. “Constitutional amendments require two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-quarters of  the states to ratify. No party controls that much. That’s all you need to  understand. So, no, Barack Obama will  not be serving a third term.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and Bush-era FEC commissioner (and one of the nation’s foremost voter fraud crusaders), agrees: “I’m going to attempt to not laugh at this,” Von Spakovsky told Mother Jones. “I don’t like Obama’s policies, but even I don’t believe he would try to get a third term  in direct contravention of the 22nd Amendment. Particularly because he couldn’t. There is a constitutional prohibition as well as a practical one: When you submit an application in every state and in Washington, DC, to the state  election official to qualify to get on the ballot, they simply won’t accept an application from someone who violates the 22nd Amendment.”

Technically, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for an American politician to launch an effort to lengthen a term, or  seek an extra four years. Early in President Reagan’s second term, congressional allies attempted to find support for amending the Constitution to give him a  chance to potentially serve a third term. And when Nixon was in office, there was a proposal to expand presidential terms to six  years. Both initiatives were quickly abandoned.

As Von Spakovsky said, “This is not a realistic fear that anyone should have.”

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Theist Writes | What Kind of People are Atheists? Behind The Scenes At an Atheist Conference

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Atheists, Atheism, Atheist Good Guys, Atheists

What kind of people are atheists? Behind the scenes at an atheist conference
Posted by Derek Murphy

What kind of people are atheists? Behind the scenes at an atheist conference

I got up early the second day of the conference, took a coffee and a pastry from the hotel lobby, and headed to the convention hall in Springfield Missouri. There was a large crowd outside today. I smiled, eager to meet new friends – until I realized they were Christian protesters.

Skepticon describes itself as the “Largest Free Conference on Skepticism” in the nation, and it has been a well-known atheist convention for several years.

I’d flown in the day before and driven down from Kansas City, passing through pleasant countryside, old white houses, and lots of bible colleges.

As someone with a background in theology and comparative literature, my writing and art focuses on religious themes without actually being reverent; in fact my playful paintings and research into historical religious literature and mystery cult traditions inevitably comes across as blasphemous.

It’s difficult to share my work with theists, who get uncomfortable, and so I’ve begun to make connections with atheists communities. But this was my first time actually participating in an atheist event. As somewhat of an outsider, I surveyed the gathering with the detached eye of a social scientist.

From the protesters outside, you would think atheists were dangerous, or evil, or violent, or somehow harmful to the moral fabric of America. But were they really?

What kind of people are atheists?

Here are some of the things I noticed about the people attending Skepticon:

  • They talk a lot, use big words and speak quickly. They mostly talk about becoming more rational, science and science fiction.
  • They have a lot of tattoos.
  • They dress casually, almost defiantly unstylish.
  • A lot of guys have long hair.
  • A lot of girls have died their hair bright colors.
  • They have piercings.
  • They are eloquent, and opinionated, and well informed.
  • They know a lot of stuff.

Here is a social hypothesis: they are a group of misfits. They were nerds before it became cool and fashionable to be a nerd, meaning they probably got picked on. They didn’t wear cool clothes and probably had trouble making friends. They were ignored – which pushed them further into isolation activities like reading books.

When they grew up they became anti-establishment, anti-ordinary. This was a move based in part on the social ostricization at the hands of the herd, but also the natural effect of education and the evolution of rationality and skepticism from anyone who does enough research. They celebrate their uniqueness and individuality by dying their hair and getting tattoos – proud of their nonconformity.

Interestingly, because they are full of self-motivation, self-empowerment, deliberate and conscientious with a sense of responsibility for their actions, they are more trustworthy: one vendor told me he doesn’t ever have trouble with credit cards or checks at an atheist conference, whereas at a normal conference he wouldn’t be able to trust people.

It was interesting to contrast this group with the crowd of protesters – well dressed, fashionable teens, many Asian-Americans, all huddled into themselves passive-aggressively standing up against a perceived enemy they knew nothing about, obviously sharing a group mentality about what they were doing there.

If I wanted to be mean, I could say that they just looked young, immature, and lacking intelligence. 18 years ago, I could have been one of them.

What do atheists stand for?

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” says the fortune cookie wisdom of the religious. And atheists often argue that atheism is not a belief or movement or anything except the absence of belief in a deity. But it simply isn’t true that atheists stand for nothing.

In particular, atheists want people to get educated and make smarter decisions. They want to have the freedom to make their own decisions about what they can do with their lives and their bodies, and they want to share that same freedom with others. Hemant Mehta highlighted the discrimination against young atheists in American Culture; how simply choosing not to pray a long with a high school sports team can make a teenage girl supreme villain of the community.

Atheists aren’t fighting against God or religion. They are simply fighting for their right to respectively not participate without serious social repercussions and abuse. Another speaker, I forget which one, brought up the issue of speaking with Christians.

Some atheists, he said, think the religious “aren’t worth talking to” because they can’t listen. But how many of us were religious at one point in our lives? (A majority raise their hands). “I think we were worth talking to!” he concludes. And he’s right – part of the value of having an organized community of non-believers is to help transition those people who have begun to question their beliefs but are afraid to stop going to church or voice their opinions and ideas.

My favorite speaker at the conference, James Croft, really put all of this into perspective. Atheists are being called “Nones” – having no beliefs and nothing to stand for. They are empty, meaningless, and can be ignored. But the “non-religious” segment of the USA is growing exponentially, and with increasing swiftness. (As it does in every advanced society with open communication and technology and freedom).

James talked about the necessity of building a positive moral community, because atheists DO have things that they are willing to fight for. Important issues include:

  • Climate change issue
  • Equal sex marriage
  • Reproductive rights, right to choose
  • Honesty and accountability
  • A moral constituency that is politically engaged

The interesting thing is that most of my friends and family, being Democrats, agree with with atheist values. Are these the evil ethics of Satanists trying to bring our country into evil? Yes, say the conservative republicans and religious right.

These political issues won’t be easily solved in the USA anytime soon.

As for myself, I’d much rather live in an America dominated by intelligent, scientifically progressive atheists who care about things like health care and climate change, than in an America led by Christians who determine political laws based on a book written a few thousand years ago.

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Christian Zionist Fraudster and Fake “Ex-Terrorist” Walid Shoebat Claims Jewish Ancestry

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Christian Zionism, Christian Zionist, Christianity Is Cretinism, Fake Terrorist, Islamophobia Industry, Walid Shoebat, Walid Shoebat con man

Walid_Shoebat

Another self-serving, thoroughly discredited con man lauded by the American Religious Right, one Walid Shoebat, is now also trying to pass himself off as of Jewish Ancestry. Seems he’s milked and bilked the dirt dumb crazies of the American Religious Right and now angling to lure and sucker the Jewish community to hand over their hard-earned dollars! 

Walid_Shoebat

See here:-

Walid Shoebat: Fake Terrorist Busted!

And see here:-

‘Ex-terrorist’ Rakes in Homeland Security Bucks

And here:-

Shoebat Watch: “Ex-Terrorist” Fraud Sucking Up Taxpayer Money

http://www.walid-shoebat.blogspot.com.au/

Walid Shoebat Claims Jewish Ancestry “On Both Sides”
Posted by Richard Bartholomew

A particularly strange exchange between self-described “ex-terrorist” Walid Shoebat and Christian Zionist radio host Sid Roth:

Sid:… you also told me that on both sides of your family there’s Jewish ancestry and you went a bit further; most of the Palestinians you tell me have Jewish ancestry. Why do you say that?

Walid: Well, because I researched the archives of my family heritage, the Shoebat clan comes from Harris Ben Cobb, a Jew who converted to Islam. Before him he knew Harris Ben Cobb comes from a Ashomel Ben Adaya, no Muslim has the name Shomoel in fact if you look at Wikipedia Shomoel Ben Adaya was a Jew who created [sic] to Islam in Yemen.

This makes little sense. First, Samaw’al ibn ‘Adiya was a pre-Islamic Arab poet in Yemen who was either a convert to Judaism or of Jewish descent, not a Jewish convert to Islam (as “Shmu’el Ben Adaya”, he has a street named after him in Jerusalem). Second, “Cobb” is an English surname, and “Harris” is an English first name. Perhaps there’s a Jewish “Ben Cobb” surname of which I am unaware, but either way, it seems unlikely that a person with such a name would be the origin of the Palestinian Shuaybat clan, or that the family of such a person could be traced back to a sixth-century Yemeni poet.

It’s also not clear how he would have Jewish ancestry on his American side. According to his own account in Why We Left Islam (blogged here), he states that (pp. 19-20):

My maternal grandfather, F.W. Georgeson… was a great friend of Winston Churchill.

Frederick W. Georgeson was the mayor of Eureka, California; according to is a 1915 biography here, he was born in Scotland, and his wife was from Iowa and named Thompson. However, elsewhere he names Georgeson as his “Great Grandfather”, and from the birth date (F.W. was born in 1858) it seems likely that there is at least one intermediate generation (Incidentally, Georgeson’s supposed association with Churchill appears to have eluded the attention of historians and biographers).

Shoebat’s more general point of a genetic link between Jews and Palestinians has some scientific validity, although it’s a strange point for him to make, and in his case his argument is based on a supposed special access to knowledge:

…in all Palestinian homes you will find the Star of David in front of every home. The Star of David you will find Palestinians who still observe many things Jewish. Eating the lamb standing up comes from Exodus.

That “in all Palestinian homes you will find the Star of David” is a new one to me.

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Yet Another Con Man Hailed As a Hero By Religious Right Crazies

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religion and the Brain, Religion Breeds Ignorance, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Is a Scam, Religion is anti-Science, Religion Makes You Stupid, Religious Bigots, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Brainwashing, Religious Charlatans, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Cretins, Religious Crooks, Theocon, Theocon Fascists, Theocons, Theocracy, Theocrats

Arthur Goldberg Likens his Embattled Ex-Gay Therapy Group to Weight Watchers

Submitted by Brian Tashman

Before founding the ex-gay therapy group JONAH, Arthur Goldberg was an investor convicted on felony charges and served time in prison for mail fraud and conspiracy. But the con man is being hailed as a hero by the Religious Right now that he is going up against the Southern Poverty Law Center in court, which is representing several customers of his New Jersey-based organization who are suing him for consumer fraud. Goldberg, however, will be unable to represent himself as he has been disbarred.

While speaking to American Family Association president Tim Wildmon and Family Research Council head Tony Perkins on AFA Today, Goldberg denied the SPLC’s claims that he defrauded customers by advertising that his group is able to “cure clients of being gay,” for example by instructing a group of men to “remove their clothing and stand naked in a circle” alongside a nude “counselor.”

Goldberg told Wildmon and Perkins that filing suit against an ex-gay therapy organization is like suing Weight Watchers for failing to lose weight through their program.

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James Madison Vs. Catholic Adolf Hitler on Separation of Church and State!

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Liberty, Hilter Was Catholic, Hitler, Hitler Catholic, James Madison

James Madison Vs. Catholic Adolf Hitler on Separation of Church and State

Image

In modern America, the headline may as well read James Madison Vs. The Republican Party on Separation of Church and State!

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American Religious Fascists Praise Uganda’s Theocratic Dictatorship

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Laws, Religious Lunatics, Religious Nazis, Religious Nuts, Religious Psychos, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, World Net Daily, World Nut Daily

American Religious Fanatics Praise Uganda for Making Homosexuality Illegal
Bad craziness
Posted by Charles Johnson
The far right freakazoids at World Net Daily are praising Uganda’s fanatical Christian fundamentalist president today for making homosexual behavior illegal and for staging a public show of “repentance.”

And American Christian Taliban leaders are pointing at Uganda as a future model for the United States.

Massachusetts pastor and activist Rev. Scott Lively believes Museveni is a model for other national leaders.

‘The Museveni prayer is a model for all Christian leaders in the world. The leaders of the West have declined in proportion to their degree of rejection of God,’ Lively said.

Lively also believes Uganda will rise as a major African power as America continues to decline. He uses Britain as an example.

‘Britain was at its height as a world power when it honored God as the Ugandan president has just done. America’s greatness has similarly diminished as we have shifted from a Christian to a secular-humanist country. But watch now for Uganda to be blessed by God for their desire to be His,’ Lively said. …

Homosexual activist groups have criticized the government of Uganda and Museveni for passing laws criminalizing homosexual behavior. A current bill before the Ugandan Parliament increases the jail sentences for homosexual acts and includes criminal penalties for those who encourage or promote homosexuality. …

Lively said he didn’t agree with the death penalty provision but supports the nation’s strong stance against homosexual behavior.

For another example: American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer is crowing, “It can be done!”

Homosexuality now against the law in Uganda, just as it was for 200 years in the US. It can be done.

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Never Forget! Hitler Was a Catholic! | Pope Called Hitler The Saviour of Germany

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic, Catholic Hitler, Catholic Nazis, Fascism, Fascist, Hitler Catholic, Nazi, Nazi Catholicism, Nazi Christianity, Nazi Family Values, Nazi Pope, Nazism, Pope Nazi

Never Forget! Hitler Was a Catholic! | Pope Calls Hitler The Saviour of Germany

“We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity… in fact our movement is Christian.” — Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Passau, 27 October 1928

“Hitler was Christian We Tolerate no one in our Ranks who Attacks the Idea of Christianity~ Adolf  Hitler .
By Fighting off the Jews I am Doing the Lords Work. Hitler being Called the Savior of Germany by the Catholic Pope
My feeling as a Christian leads me to be a fighter for my Lord and Saviour.
It leads me to the man who, at one time lonely and with only a few followers, recognised the Jews for what they were, and called on men to fight against them…As a Christian, I owe something to my people
I Regard Christianity the Basis of Morality the Basis of National life and a New World Order.
Adolf Hitler God gave the savior to the German people.
We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany.”  –Hermann Goering,  The Göring Wedding Only Christians perform Christian weddings, and the Nazis were no exception. Hermann Göring married Emmy Sonnemann, a famous Opera star.
Adolf Hitler stands in the front row as “Best Man” during the ceremony in the Cathedral by Reichbishop Müller.
Hitler Oath: I swear by God, this holy oath, to the Führer of the German Reich and people. Adolf Hitler…  Gott Mit Uns (God With Us) “
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Republican Voters Are The Most Stupid People On The Planet | 68% Believe In Demonic Possession But Not In Science

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Republican Demon Possession, Republicans

Shocking Poll – More than Two-Thirds of Republican Voters Believe in Demonic Possession
And less than half think humans are responsible for climate change.

Less than one week away from the election, a terrifying new poll reveals that more than two-thirds of registered Republican voters believe that people can be possessed by demons.

 

A staggering 68 percent of registered Republican votersstated that they believe demonic possession is real. Meanwhile, only 48 percent of self-identified Republicans believe in another equally if not more scary natural phenomenon: climate change.

 

The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling, touted by NPR as “one of the most prolific polling outfits in the country.”

 

The survey was filled with enlightening gems about how the supernatural world may affect the upcoming presidential race. Women were slightly more likely than men to believe in demonic possession, although this gender gap is not nearly as wide as that of women’s preference for Obama.

 

In a classic example of cognitive dissidence, only 37 percent of registered voters–both Democrat and Republican–believe in ghosts, although 57 percent believe in demonic possession. This raises the question, which was ignored in the presidential debates along with other essential issues like climate change and the educational system, about what the possessing force would actually be. (Perhaps Karl Rove?)

 

For registered Republicans who do believe in demonic possession (which is, again, the majority), there is at least one standout elected official who is taking this issue seriously and has educated himself about spiritual exorcism.

 

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has written a first-hand account about witnessing an exorcism while he was in college.

 

“Kneeling on the ground, my friends were chanting, ‘Satan, I command you to leave this woman.’ Others exhorted all ‘demons to leave in the name of Christ,'”Jindal wrote.

 

Jindal made presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s short list for VP picks–but, according to the Associated Press, this story of exorcism was a strike against the governor. (The Public Policy Poll hadn’t come out yet.)

 

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell also has considerable knowledge of witchcraft, although this expertise didn’t win her the race in 2010.

 

“I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven,” she said to ABC . “But I did, I did. I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do,” she said.

 

“One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that,” she said. “We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”

 

The poll also revealed that zombies are considered to be the scariest monster, another issue that has not been raised at all on the campaign trail.

 

Whether the two candidates will address these issues within the last week of the race remains to be seen.

Laura Gottesdiener is a freelance journalist and activist in New York City.

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Demonic Possession Video Proves That Satan, Demons and Exorcisms are REAL

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Demonic Possession, Demons, Superstition

Demonic Possession video proves that Satan, demons and exorcisms are REAL
Posted by Derek Murphy

Demonic Possession video proves that Satan, demons and exorcisms are REAL

I swear not 3 months goes by before I see the movie trailer for a new cinematographic take on the “Demonic Possession” genre.

The newest in this long, long chain of movies (all of which are eaten up by the faithful as pop culture affirmations of religious experiences, based on TRUE STORIES of demonic possession and exorcism), is “The Possession: Darkness Lives Inside.” The tagline: “Fear the Demon that Doesn’t Fear God.”

Proof that Demonic Possession is Real?

“The Possession”, like all exorcism and demonic possession movies, claims to be based on a true story.

But try finding the real evidence to back it up – and you’ll usually come away empty handed (I’ve seen links that go to Catholic Websites that then link to Satanist Groups (who don’t actually believe in a real Satan – they only use Satan as a symbol for humanist values).

However in this case, I found a background story here which is pretty cool. Lots of bad luck.

But at the same time, I can go on Ebay and buy a magic ring full of all kinds of evil spirits or demons ready to gratify my desires.

Look, here’s a 3000 year old ring with magical fire coming out of it! Amazing. For me, an old box full of Jewish spirits is the same thing.

Our beliefs have the power to change our reality, and our perception of that reality.

We see and experience what we believe in.

Why I don’t believe in Possession

1) I’ve experienced demons before. They were a horrifying manifestation of Sleep Paralysis symptoms, which I believe are the root of most religious experiences. I saw and heard demons when I was a Christian. Later, I had UFO abduction experiences. Now that I have no beliefs, I don’t really get them anymore.

2) I’ve also had some pretty serious depression/anxiety/craziness – when I felt like every morning was a nightmare hassle and I wasn’t satisfied with anything, and nothing could make me happy. That’s a serotonin disorder. Not a demon.

3) Religious people, especially Christians, get possessed. The more zealous you are, the more terrified of losing control to those dark forces that are ALWAYS trying to get you ALL THE TIME, the easier it will be for you to lose it. If demons were real, they wouldn’t only attack Christians (unless maybe you think they don’t give a damn about the rest of us, cuz we’re doomed anyway).

But almost all faiths have some kind of demonic possession. Who doesn’t get possessed? Atheists. If they screw up, it’s their own damn fault.

The more important question is:

Who the Fuck is in Control Up There?

OK, sure, God allows us free will. He wants us to love him completely, and he wants it to be our choice.

But he never offered Satan, or the demons (fallen angels?) the same deal. They get to rule Hell, until the end of time.

And yes, maybe even God allows Satan to tempt us (like he did with Job) just to make sure that we really love him (the same way a jealous girlfriend would get a friend to try and sleep with her boyfriend, so he could win her trust by not cheating).

But apparently, if these movies and the whole idea of demonic possession are to be believed, God also allows demons to wander around the earth and take over our bodies by force, against our will, and kill people. And he usually picks children, because they’re freaking terrifying.

So there’s a bunch of murdering kids with demons inside of them. If they die they probably go to Hell.

What’s God doing about it?

It’s one thing to say that James Holmes went crazy and shot people, and God didn’t stop him because he doesn’t interfere with free choice. It’s another thing to say that maybe a demon that God let out of Hell took over his body (rather than just destroying all the fallen angels, God allows them to play a violent and active role in humanity).

The truth is this: all of these “Satanic/Demonic Possession” or “Exorcism” movies are Christian Propaganda, focusing on the only tangible aspect of their faith: the evil. (“God is Love” is an internal emotion – you couldn’t make a movie about how awesome faith makes you feel).

Satan is the god who actually interferes and interacts with humans. Satan is the only one who actually caters to desires and wishes (traditionally, God never gave you what you wanted, and Satan was the temptation of following your desire rather than what God allowed you to have; hence all of the “sold my soul to Satan” literature.)

These days, with “The Secret” and other New Age, Eastern influences, we’ve come to believe that “God” allows us to manifest our own selfish desires, that we are destined to be bountiful, that we are co-creators.

All of that, however, stems from ideas directly taken from a Modernist perspective which was fiercely anti-religious and often openly Satanic (using Satan as a liberal symbol for revolution, freedom, and rationality).

Since the Red Scare of the 50′s, and then the Satanic Panic of the 70′s, (and more recently with the religious patriotism following 9-11), Americans have been forced into religion; to be un-religious was the same as to be, respectively:

  1. a Communist
  2. a Satanist
  3. a Terrorist

Only in the past decade have we begun, slowly, to shake off these shackles and allow creative independence again – and these angry, violent possession movies are the contemporary version of the medieval Hellfire scare tactics that used to get people back into churches.

Are they good entertainment? Sure – but the line “Based on a True Story” promotes a wholesale adoption of a Christian system of Good and Evil which has always been intrinsically flawed; and allowing such a blatant misuse of the word “True” is what allows millions of adults to blur the lines between fiction and reality, believing in Satan but not The Hulk or other fictional  characters.

Now that I’ve seen the movie…

Now that I’ve seen the movie, I have a better picture of the real factors influencing this horrific story (some of these you have to read between the lines of the plot subtext):

  1. A father who’s always away from home (and possibly beats his children)
  2. A high-strung, emotionally volatile wife who drinks (and probably cheats)
  3. They get divorced
  4. The youngest daughter acts up, make-believing, talking to herself/invisible friends/ telling lies and stories maybe even
  5. Being a freaky little psycho bitch from Hell child
  6. There probably was a creepy antique Jewish box involved
  7. They probably did contact some Jewish guy, even possibly tried an exorcism
  8. They probably did say stuff like “Doctors can’t help us! We need spiritual guidance!” and reject medicine.
  9. The crisis bring mommy and daddy back together, the girl stabilizes

Things that almost certainly did not happen:

  1. The creepy death/suicide in the beginning
  2. Tons of scary moths
  3. An MRI showing another person living inside a little girl – ie medical proof
  4. The girl finding the box after her dad threw it away
  5. The girl making mom’s boyfriend’s teeth fall out
  6. The car accident at the end

That’s what “Based on a True Story” and “These Events Really Happened” means.

One great line of the movie:

Dad goes to the Jews for help. They say “These things are best left in God’s hands.”

He says, and I’m paraphrasing, “Are you fucking kidding me? My daughter is possessed by a devil and I should leave it to God?” (implying that, either God allowed this to happen, or he caused it to happen, and he will stop it only when he feels like it). It’s tricky: Belief in Demons should make you an atheist – or at least make you pissed off that God is such an asshole. But it doesn’t.

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The Vatican Occupation of America

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Vatcan Sexual Abuse, Vatican, Vatican Crimes, Vatican Crimes Against Humanity, Vatican Empire, Vatican Fascism, Vatican Nazi Nexus, Vatican Scammers

How Rome Didn’t Decline and Fall (Yet)

Bill Annett Salem-News.com

The Vatican Occupation of America – A Tragi-Comedy In Three Acts III The Vatican Numbers Game.

Priests give Hitler salute at a Catholic youth rally in the Berlin-Neukolln stadium in August 1933.

 

America, the new Rome

 

(SASKATCHEWAN) – Question: (From the inquisitive student in the back row) “How can the Vatican, which has no defense or military budget of $750 billion (as in the United States), with no army, navy or air force – except for a platoon or so of those Swiss guards carrying pike poles and those funny hats)  manage to control, dictate to and obtain absolute fealty from (including the payment of enormous amounts of money under “concordats”) literally every legitimate (about 178 of them)  “free world” government, not to mention 800 million people around the globe?”

Answer: “An excellent question, back-row student. The answer is by parading itself as the next thing to God. The American model is typical, and one of the most successful. Let us consider the American model. Watch closely.”

In our last class, entitled “Sex And The Single Church,” we were considering “Catholic Education,” which is held high as a beacon and often referred to in hushed tones by distinguished politicians, celebrities and talk-show hosts who are obviously graduands of an excellent Catholic educational institution, along with emotional nostalgia over Knute Rockne, the Gipper himself and the football supremacy of Notre Dame. As a result, the priestly control of education in Catholic America has a subliminal but huge implication for intellectual freedom, that handmaiden of “religious freedom.”

Consider the following catechism, offered up by Dr. Sydney Mumford, as far back as 1984:

  1. The pope is the infallible leader of mankind, and, when he speaks for the Church in matters of faith and morals he, like Caesar’s wife, can neither be wrong nor above reproach.
  • The Virgin Mary returned to the earth six times in 1917 and told three peasant children of Fatima, Portugal, what the Western world should do to avoid destruction by Soviet Russia.
  • It is a grave sin for an American Catholic deliberately to join the Masons or Odd Fellows. (Contrary to popular belief, the Knights of Columbus are not Odd Fellows. They just look like it. – Ed.)
  • No good Catholic may positively and unconditionally approve of the principle of separation of church and state. (Rick Santorum is a good Catholic. -Ed)
  • Thomas Aquinas is the greatest philosopher of all time. (So is Phil Donahue. No relation to Bill Donahue, the soothsayer of the American Catholic League. -Ed.)
  • It is a sin to teach the evolution of man as a whole from animal life. (Although Archbishops may be referred to as “primates.” -Ed.)
  • In general, no Catholic has a moral right to secure a divorce and remarry even if married to a syphilitic, insane or adulterous murderer; and any Catholic who does remarry after such a divorce is guilty of adultery.
  • The Reformation was a backward step in human history, and many of the worst evils of fascism and communism flow from it.
  • It is a grave sin for a Catholic under ordinary circumstance knowingly to own or use a Protestant Bible.
  • The pope is the head of a sovereign temporal state which has coequal rights with that of the government of the United States.
  • The rights of the Church as educator are prior to and superior to the rights of the state as educator, and no government has the legal right to infringe upon this divine prerogative.

Since differences in schools, curriculum and teachers produce differences in behavior, there is a huge implication for science, the study of demographics and population growth and presidential elections. Catholic hospitals, for example, sharply restrict the delivery of family-planning services, to the dismay of any non-Catholic couples who are naïve enough to use these facilities for fertility related services.

With recent advances in medicine that have allowed embryo transfers, test-tube babies, and artificial insemination,  the Church’s negative response runs counter to its pro-life position. The Church claims that such conceptions are against “natural” law, with elaborate theological reasoning, all of which is sheer lunacy.

Instead of armed forces, the Church uses psychic weap­ons, such as the threat of excommunication. Over the centuries, the Church devised an elaborate system of controls that rely upon what amounts to “psychic terrorism” applied to the faithful by celibate moral experts whose sole domain is the adjudication and wrestling to the ground of a Church invention known as “sin.” Sin differs from crime in that for the latter you go to jail, for the former you go to the confessional and donate a little something to the Church, concerning which, all monetary roads lead to Rome and the Vatican Bank.

The distinction between Catholic Church tyranny and that of other historical tyrants is that the former is a tyranny of virtue. Just as American advertising has established the principle that if you lie long and strongly enough, people will buy the lie, the Church line can counter the truth without producing the appearance of a lie. (On Madison Avenue, the message that “saving 15% on your car insurance,” bombarded by an insurance company ad nauseum convinces the buyer, although the fact is  that the company has the most expensive premiums in the industry.)

“Goodness” has allowed the Vatican tyranny to flourish as Christian love  for two thousand years. Oddly, today  only 50 percent of all Catholic Americans polled believe in papal infallibility, but they buy the product anyway. This spread between belief and action has been the historical reason for the Church’s success as a basic profit center, but it also bears the seeds of its undoing.

In practice, American Catholics ignore the wishes of the hierarchy and produce family sizes identical to non-Catholics. They use the same contraceptive methods with the same frequency and are resorting to abortion at the same rate. Even as recently as 1960 Catholics had, on average, one more child than non-Catholics. No longer. Along with a gradual exodus from the Church by all concerned.

As a result, Catholic “religious freedom” must continue to fight a rear-guard action against the encroachment of a more enlightened generation and the advent of the worldwide web, social media and universal communication. Rearguard action has been attempted, such as attempting to encourage greater immigration of people from Catholic nations, such as Latin America, to replace the eroding American family constituency, but the handwriting is increasingly on the wall.

Church reactionaries to the demographic reality of the shrinking Catholic presence in America enlist the ancient cliche, “You should never criticize another man’s religion.” That innocent-sounding doctrine, born in a Protestant America before the arrival of a significant Vatican presence, is full of danger to U.S. security. It ignores the duty of every good citizen to stand for the truth in every field of thought, including the favorite of all righties, national security. It illuminates the central principle that a large part of what the Vatican calls religion is also politics and economics.

Which takes me back to  my Dad and his injunction when I was a little boy that I apologize for bad-mouthing the Church. So here, in these three installments, albeit 75 years later,  I come as close as I can, Dad, to an essay on tolerance.

“We will forgive you,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “if you will forgive us.”

Catholic clergy and Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels (far right) and Wilhelm Frick (second from right), give the Nazi salute. Germany, date uncertain. [Photo source, Holocaust Encyclopedia]

Except that in this instance, the “you” in the equation, despite all the Latin mumbling, hasn’t said mea culpa yet.

First published by:

THE CANADIAN SHIELD  April 17,  Volume 3, Issue #18

______________________________________________________

Bill Annett grew up a writing brat; his father, Ross Annett, at a time when Scott Fitzgerald and P.G. Wodehouse were regular contributors, wrote the longest series of short stories in the Saturday Evening Post’s history, with the sole exception of the unsinkable Tugboat Annie.

At 18, Bill’s first short story was included in the anthology “Canadian Short Stories.” Alarmed, his father enrolled Bill in law school in Manitoba to ensure his going straight. For a time, it worked, although Bill did an arabesque into an English major, followed, logically, by corporation finance, investment banking and business administration at NYU and the Wharton School. He added G.I. education in the Army’s CID at Fort Dix, New Jersey during the Korean altercation.

He also contributed to The American Banker and Venture in New York, INC. in Boston, the International Mining Journal in London, Hong Kong Business, Financial Times and Financial Post in Toronto.

Bill has written six books, including a page-turner on mutual funds, a send-up on the securities industry, three corporate histories and a novel, the latter no doubt inspired by his current occupation in Daytona Beach as a law-abiding beach comber.

You can write to Bill Annett at this address: bilko23@gmail.com

Vatican Facism Catholic Nazism Catholic Nazi Vatican Power Catholic Power vs Democracy Catholic Hitler Catholic Dictators

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Jewish Orthodox Cry Anti-Semitism Whilst Vilifying Other Religions

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Bigots, Jewish Crazies, Jewish Cults, Jewish Extremists, Jewish Fanatic, Jewish fascists, Jewish Fundamentalism, Jewish Genital Mutilation, Jewish Genocide, Jewish Lobby, Jewish Rabbi, Jewish Racism, Jewish Racists, Jewish Radical Right, Jewish Religion, Jewish Religious Right, Jewish Religious Terrorists, Jewish Right, Jewish Right Wing, Jewish Ritual, Jewish Ritual Dangers, Sectarianism, Ultra Orthodox

 “Any trial based on the assumption that Jews and goyim are equal is a total travesty of justice” — Prominent Jewish religious fanatic, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

 

Jewish Day School Textbook Challenged by Muslim Group for Vilifying Muslims

DateFriday, November 23, 2012

A Canadian Islamic organization is accusing a Toronto-area Jewish day school of using a textbook that vilifies Muslims.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Jewish groups, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-CAN, charges that a textbook used at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School employs “inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims.”

CAIR-CAN alleges that the book, “2000 Years of Jewish History,” describes Muslims as “rabid fanatics” with “savage beginnings.”

“The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith. The material further denigrates the Prophet Muhammad as a ‘rabid Jew-hater,’ and falsely portrays Islam as inherently anti-Semitic and devoted to hating Jews,” the group said in its letter to the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA.

It said the text is used in grade 7 and 8 girls’ classes at the Orthodox Jewish day school and “leaves impressionable young Jewish readers with a sense of suspicion and even intolerance towards their fellow Canadians.”

The group wants the Centre for Jewish Education of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to investigate.

No one from CIJA, the Wiesenthal Center or Ohr HaEmet responded to JTA’s requests for comment.

CAIR-CAN’s salvo comes on the heels of an investigation by Toronto-area police of a local Islamic school. Earlier this month, police cleared the school of hate crimes allegations following a complaint by Jewish groups. York Regional Police found that teaching materials at the East End Madrassah attacked Jews and “suggested intolerance,” but were not criminal.

Part of the madrassah’s curriculum encouraged boys to keep fit for jihad, compared Jews to Nazis, and referred to “Jewish plots and treacheries.”

The complaint “prompted change” at the madrassah, noted CAIR-CAN in its letter, adding that the group “welcomes that change.”

When police began their probe, the Toronto District School Board,  which rented space to the school, revoked its permit and the madrassah had to relocate.

JTA, 22 November 201

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Republican Ignoramuses | Grand Old Planet

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Anti-Reason, Anti-Science, Anti-Science Crazies, Republican Anti-Science, Science

Grand Old Planet

By

Earlier this week, GQ magazine published an interview with Senator Marco Rubio, whom many consider a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, in which Mr. Rubio was asked how old the earth is. After declaring “I’m not a scientist, man,” the senator went into desperate evasive action, ending with the declaration that “it’s one of the great mysteries.”

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

It’s funny stuff, and conservatives would like us to forget about it as soon as possible. Hey, they say, he was just pandering to likely voters in the 2016 Republican primaries — a claim that for some reason is supposed to comfort us.

But we shouldn’t let go that easily. Reading Mr. Rubio’s interview is like driving through a deeply eroded canyon; all at once, you can clearly see what lies below the superficial landscape. Like striated rock beds that speak of deep time, his inability to acknowledge scientific evidence speaks of the anti-rational mind-set that has taken over his political party.

By the way, that question didn’t come out of the blue. As speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful aid to creationists trying to water down science education. In one interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to Communist indoctrination tactics — although he graciously added that “I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro.” Gee, thanks.

What was Mr. Rubio’s complaint about science teaching? That it might undermine children’s faith in what their parents told them to believe. And right there you have the modern G.O.P.’s attitude, not just toward biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to contradict faith, suppress the evidence.

The most obvious example other than evolution is man-made climate change. As the evidence for a warming planet becomes ever stronger — and ever scarier — the G.O.P. has buried deeper into denial, into assertions that the whole thing is a hoax concocted by a vast conspiracy of scientists. And this denial has been accompanied by frantic efforts to silence and punish anyone reporting the inconvenient facts.

But the same phenomenon is visible in many other fields. The most recent demonstration came in the matter of election polls. Coming into the recent election, state-level polling clearly pointed to an Obama victory — yet more or less the whole Republican Party refused to acknowledge this reality. Instead, pundits and politicians alike fiercely denied the numbers and personally attacked anyone pointing out the obvious; the demonizing of The Times’s Nate Silver, in particular, was remarkable to behold.

What accounts for this pattern of denial? Earlier this year, the science writer Chris Mooney published “The Republican Brain,” which was not, as you might think, a partisan screed. It was, instead, a survey of the now-extensive research linking political views to personality types. As Mr. Mooney showed, modern American conservatism is highly correlated with authoritarian inclinations — and authoritarians are strongly inclined to reject any evidence contradicting their prior beliefs. Today’s Republicans cocoon themselves in an alternate reality defined by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, and only on rare occasions — like on election night — encounter any hint that what they believe might not be true.

And, no, it’s not symmetric. Liberals, being human, often give in to wishful thinking — but not in the same systematic, all-encompassing way.

Coming back to the age of the earth: Does it matter? No, says Mr. Rubio, pronouncing it “a dispute amongst theologians” — what about the geologists? — that has “has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” But he couldn’t be more wrong.

We are, after all, living in an era when science plays a crucial economic role. How are we going to search effectively for natural resources if schools trying to teach modern geology must give equal time to claims that the world is only 6.000 years old? How are we going to stay competitive in biotechnology if biology classes avoid any material that might offend creationists?

And then there’s the matter of using evidence to shape economic policy. You may have read about the recent study from the Congressional Research Service finding no empirical support for the dogma that cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to higher economic growth. How did Republicans respond? By suppressing the report. On economics, as in hard science, modern conservatives don’t want to hear anything challenging their preconceptions — and they don’t want anyone else to hear about it, either.

So don’t shrug off Mr. Rubio’s awkward moment. His inability to deal with geological evidence was symptomatic of a much broader problem — one that may, in the end, set America on a path of inexorable decline

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Redneck Taliban | A Year in Jail for Not Believing in God? How Kentucky is Persecuting Atheists

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Right, Atheism, Atheist Good Guys, Blasphemy Laws, Human Liberty, Human Rights, Human Rights Abuse, Redneck Taliban, Religious Laws, Religious Reich, Religious Right

A Year in Jail for Not Believing in God? How Kentucky is Persecuting Atheists

In Kentucky, a homeland security law requires the state’s citizens to acknowledge the security provided by the Almighty God–or risk 12 months in prison.

The law and its sponsor, state representative Tom Riner, have been the subject of controversy since the law first surfaced in 2006, yet the Kentucky state Supreme Court has refused to review its constitutionality, despite clearly violating the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.

“This is one of the most egregiously and breathtakingly unconstitutional actions by a state legislature that I’ve ever seen,” said Edwin Kagin, the legal director of American Atheists’, a national organization focused defending the civil rights of atheists. American Atheists’ launched a lawsuit against the law in 2008, which won at the Circuit Court level, but was then overturned by the state Court of Appeals.

The law states, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.'”

The law requires that plaques celebrating the power of the Almighty God be installed outside the state Homeland Security building–and carries a criminal penalty of up to 12 months in jail if one fails to comply.

The plaque’s inscription begins with the assertion, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

Tom Riner, a Baptist minister and the long-time Democratic state representative, sponsored the law.

“The church-state divide is not a line I see,” Riner told  The New York Times  shortly after the law was first challenged in court. “What I do see is an attempt to separate America from its history of perceiving itself as a nation under God.”

A practicing Baptist minister, Riner is solely devoted to his faith–even when that directly conflicts with his job as state representative. He has often been at the center of unconstitutional and expensive controversies throughout his 26 years in office. In the last ten years, for example, the state has spent more than $160,000 in string of losing court cases against the American Civil Liberties Union over the state’s decision to display the Ten Commandments in public buildings, legislation that Riner sponsored.

Although the Kentucky courts have yet to strike down the law, some judges have been explicit about its unconstitutionality.

“Kentucky’s law is a legislative finding, avowed as factual, that the Commonwealth is not safe absent reliance on Almighty God. Further, (the law) places a duty upon the executive director to publicize the assertion while stressing to the public that dependence upon Almighty God is vital, or necessary, in assuring the safety of the commonwealth,” wrote Judge Ann O’Malley Shake in Court of Appeals’ dissenting opinion.

This rational was in the minority, however, as the Court of Appeals reversed the lower courts’ decision that the law was unconstitutional.

Last week, American Atheists submitted a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the law.

Riner, meanwhile, continues to abuse the state representative’s office, turning it into a pulpit for his God-fearing message.

“The safety and security of the state cannot be achieved apart from recognizing our dependence upon God,” Riner recently t old Fox News.

“We believe dependence on God is essential. … What the founding fathers stated and what every president has stated, is their reliance and recognition of Almighty God, that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

Laura Gottesdiener is a freelance journalist and activist in New York City.

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Marxist View On Gaza: What Does It Mean?

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Gaza, Israel Killing Machine, Marxism

Gaza: What does it mean?
Posted by Alan Woods
On the morning of November 15, Israel carried out the extrajudicial killing of Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari. This act sparked off a new and deadly conflict between Israel and Gaza. This whole affair has all the hallmarks of a premeditated provocation.

“When the leaders speak of peace the common people know that war is coming.” (Bertolt Brecht)

IDF chief of staff visits southern Israel-Israel Defense Forces

IDF chief of staff visits southern Israel Photo: Israel Defense ForcesIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly wanted to provoke Hamas into an armed conflict. He has succeeded. Hamas responded with rocket attacks on Israeli towns that border the Gaza strip. The Israelis have used these attacks as an excuse for pulverising Gaza.

Throughout the night of Nov. 16-17, the Israeli Air Force bombed targets across the Gaza Strip including key Hamas ministries, police stations and tunnels near the border crossing with Egypt. They also carried out strikes in Rafah’s al-Sulan and al-Zahour neighbourhoods, as well as east of the al-Maghazi refugee camp. Later attacks included the bombing of a building that was known to be occupied by international journalists.

The Israeli propaganda machine has gone into overdrive. They try to present their military onslaught as a justified response to “terrorist attacks”. Obediently falling into line, the mass media in the western world show their “impartiality” by presenting the conflict as a war between equals: “Israeli bombs against Hamas rockets”.  But this conflict is absurdly unequal.

Gaza is an open-air prison in which 1.7 million people live in just 140 square miles. It is entirely at the mercy of its powerful neighbour, Israel. The latter possesses the most formidable military machine in the entire region. Its stockpile of arms, which includes nuclear weapons, is funded by Washington to the tune of US$3 billion a year.

By contrast, Gaza is a tiny besieged enclave composed mainly of impoverished refugees. The primitive, homemade rockets fired from Gaza are no match for the sophisticated weaponry of the Israeli army and air force. Israeli jet fighters and drones are bombarding Gaza by day and by night.

The Israelis claim that they are aimed to kill only “terrorists” and Hamas officials. But the television cameras of the world give the lie to this propaganda. Despite the claims of the Israelis that these attacks were carefully targeted, most of the victims were, as usual, civilians, including many women and children. The harrowing scenes of diminutive corpses being carried by grieving relatives to the cemeteries have shocked the public opinion of the world.

The population of Gaza is angry and desperate, but increasingly traumatised by the unrelenting bombardment, against which they have no defences. Despite talk of a ceasefire, Israel continues its airstrikes on Gaza, and Gaza continues its long-range rocket attacks on major Israeli population centres. The sight of rockets flying in the direction of Israel may or may not boost morale, but in fact their effectiveness as weapons of war is minimal.

As of last night (Monday) at least one hundred people have been killed in Gaza, while the Israeli death toll has reached the grand total of – three. This is not a case of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The death toll of Palestinians exceeds that of Israelis by thirty three times.

The Israelis claim that their Iron Dome defence system has intercepted most of the rockets. To judge by the very low Israeli casualty figures, this may be partly true. However, the claims of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) that its Iron Dome interceptors have successfully intercepted 90 percent of the rockets are clearly exaggerated.

Israel appears to be positioning itself in preparation for a ground operation. The Israeli Cabinet on Nov. 16 approved Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s request to call up 75,000 reservists, even more than in the 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza. The main roads leading to Gaza and running parallel to Sinai have been declared closed military zones. Tanks, armoured personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery and troops have been massing on the border in recent days. Whether this is an act of intimidation or a preparation for something more serious remains to be seen.

What was the purpose of all this?

What interest can Israel have in taking on Gaza this time?

The timing cannot have been an accident. It follows the same pattern we saw exactly four years ago. On Nov. 4, 2008, while Americans were going to the polls to elect a new president, the Israeli army entered the Gaza Strip with infantry, tanks and bulldozers Its alleged aim was to dismantle the extensive tunnel network used by Hamas to smuggle in weapons.

Hamas responded with a barrage of mortar and rocket fire. On Dec. 27, 2008, Operation Cast Lead was launched. The military campaign began with a seven day aerial bombardment was followed by a 15-day ground incursion. By the end of the campaign, many people were killed and the infrastructure of Gaza was devastated.

According to figures from the Israel Defence Forces figures, only ten Israeli soldiers died (four from friendly fire). The hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas killed three Israeli civilians. But 1,166 Palestinians were killed, of which 709 were said to be combatants.

It is no secret that Netanyahu wants to bomb Iran, allegedly to sabotage its nuclear programme. It is also no secret that Netanyahu was hoping for the victory of Mitt Romney in the US elections. The Republicans are well known to be active advocates of an attack on Iran.

Obama is a more cautious representative of US Big Business and is worried about the effect of an Israeli air strike against Iran. By flexing his muscles only a few days after the US elections, Netanyahu is ending a message to Washington, which says more or less: “Obama can say whatever he likes, but we are the ones who decide what happens in this part of the world.”

It has been said that certain forces in Gaza may be manufacturing long-range rockets locally. Even more significantly, it is said that the rockets that have been fired into Israel have been imported from Iran. The latter accusation would give a sinister twist to the present conflict, providing it with a regional dimension that is highly convenient to Netanyahu, who is looking for any excuse to launch an air attack on Iran. Part of his calculations may have been an attempt to shoring up his rear prior to such an attack.

At the same time, he may also be sending a message to the new Egyptian government. The Muslim Brotherhood is supposed to be hostile to Israel. It is also supposed to be friendly towards Hamas. But this attack has shown the Morsi regime to be weak and pusillanimous. Cairo makes noises about the “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza but does not lift a finger to go to its defence.

Prospects for Negotiations

The present conflict has once more glaringly exposed the impotence of the so-called United Nations. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has said he will go to Gaza, but he will not be able to do anything.

All kinds of contradictory rumours regarding the outcome of cease-fire negotiations between Hamas and Israel have been circulating in Cairo. A Hamas spokesman told Al Jazeera that Israel and Hamas have “agreed to 90 percent of the terms of a new cease-fire”. But he did not say what the remaining ten percent consisted of. And while Israeli officials have told news outlets that the government is in talks with Cairo on a cease-fire, Israeli officials are now denying reports that an Israeli envoy is in Cairo at all.

On the face of it, there seems to be some basis for a deal. Hamas would like to enjoy the prestige of a symbolic victory from its long-range rocket attacks against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but does not want to pay the price of seeing its leadership and infrastructure pulverised in an Israeli ground invasion.

For its part, Israel would like to remove or neutralize the threat posed by Hamas’ long-range rockets but does not want to go through the experience of a ground invasion, drawing Israeli forces into urban warfare with the threat of suicide bombings that could prove costly.

It would appear that Hamas is pressing for a temporary truce in return for Egypt opening the border blockade on Gaza and Israel halting targeted killings of its leaders and military commanders. Whether the Israelis will accept this is open to doubt. Who will guarantee such a deal? Unless Egypt agrees to assume responsibility for Hamas’ rocket arsenal to satisfy Israel’s security concerns, it will be difficult for Israel to take these talks seriously. But that would place Egypt itself right in the firing line of future conflicts. It would also fatally undermine the Morsi government.

Both sides want a negotiated end – but on terms that would leave the other side in a weaker position. Both sides are well aware of the other side’s game. In order to reach a deal, Hamas would have to recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel would have to accept something resembling a Palestinian state led by Hamas in Gaza, which would gradually take over the West Bank. Both these assumptions seem wildly improbable. It is hard to see how this contradiction can be resolved peacefully.

Hamas does not want to give up its rockets. Israel cannot allow Hamas to possess weapons that threatens its heartland. The long-range Fajr-5 rockets can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The possession of these rockets improves Hamas’ strategic position and also serves to undermine the Palestinian National Authority (In the West Bank) vis-a-vis Hamas. They will therefore resist any deal that deprives them of the rockets. But Israel will not accept the Fajr-5 in the hands of Hamas. Netanyahu announced to his Cabinet Nov. 18 that targeted killings would not only continue, but would increase.

It is possible that all this merely means that both Israel and Hamas are trying to strengthen their negotiating positions by continuing their attacks before a cease-fire deal is struck. Be that as it may, while the leaders talk of peace, the war is already under way. And although a direct ground attack on Gaza by the Israelis has been temporarily stalled, the Israelis have already mobilized their forces and are ready to attack whenever they choose.

Although probably the Israelis would prefer not to attack because of the consequences, both in terms of human casualties and in political reverberations, they are poised to attack. And one must not assume that this is just a bluff. Netanyahu has given notice that if a truce is not agreed soon, a ground war may be launched even before the end of this week.

Gaza and the Arab Revolution

The Europeans are putting heavy pressure on Jerusalem to desist from an actual invasion of Gaza. Western capitals fear that any serious conflict in the region can spiral out of control. Though they always speak of humanitarianism, their real motives are quite different.

Paris, London and Berlin fear the effects on the price of oil and the anaemic economic recovery. Above all, they fear a new eruption of the “Arab Street”, always highly sensitive to the Palestinian cause. It is this that inspires their insistent calls for peace and restraint. But the Europeans are far too concerned in trying to halt the disintegration of the European Union to get involved with what is happening.

The same fears exist at the highest levels of the United States government. That is why Hillary Clinton is on a plane heading for Cairo. But, having burnt their fingers in Iraq, the gentlemen in Washington do not wish to be dragged into another conflagration in the Middle East.

In theory the United States can pressure Egypt by threatening to withhold financial and military aid. But in practice no US administration can oppose what Israel does because, after the Egyptian Revolution, it is now its only reliable ally in the whole region. Therefore, despite his weasel words, Obama has effectively endorsed the Israeli position.

On the broader scale, however, Israel has never been so isolated. Back in 2008, Mubarak’s Egypt could be relied upon to adopt a position of benevolent “neutrality”, which was, in practice, support for Israel. Now Mubarak has gone, and the present Egyptian government can no longer be relied upon.

In 2008 Turkey was a close ally of both the USA and Israel. But Israel’s relations with Turkey have been strained to breaking point by the attack on a Turkish ship bringing aid to Gaza in May 2010, during which several Turkish citizens were killed by Israeli troops. The Turkish Prime Minister, Erdogan, has recently denounced Israel as a “terrorist state”.

Under Assad Syria was an adversary, but at least it was a predictable one. With the chaos in Syria spreading to the Lebanon, Israel can no longer rely on Damascus to keep Hezbollah in check. Moreover, Iran has increased its influence in the region, bringing it closer to Israel and intensifying the tension over Iranian nuclear facilities.

Closer to home, the growing crisis in Gaza threatens to provoke renewed instability in the West Bank and arouse the Palestinians in Jordan. Across the Jordan River valley, to Israel’s east, the Hashemite kingdom is hanging by a thread.

But the country most directly affected is Egypt. The Egyptian government, terrified of the repercussions of a new war on the streets of Cairo, has been the most active in trying to secure a cease-fire: Cairo is hosting talks on a ceasefire, involving senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad members. It is said that Israeli officials are also present in Cairo.

The Egyptian government has a vested interest in preventing an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza because of the explosive effects inside Egypt. The Moslem Brotherhood is supposed to be aligned with Hamas. But in reality, its support is confined to hypocritical speeches about the plight of the people of Gaza. Morsi will have to promise the Israelis that he will do everything in his power to prevent weapons smuggling via Gaza. He will stand exposed before the masses.

The leaders of Hamas have the ambition of donning the mantle of “resistance” that was earlier worn by Hezbollah. They hope that the present crisis will enable them to win a symbolic “victory” over Israel. But that is an idle dream, which can end up in the complete devastation of Gaza.

The people of Gaza are increasingly desperate. They have no control over events that are destroying their lives. They hate the Israeli oppressors, but also resent the dictatorial rule of the “men with beards,” which has brought them nothing but death and suffering. Neither Hamas nor the so-called Palestinian Authority can offer any solution. Only a genuine revolutionary leadership can show the way out for the Palestinian people.

For its part, the Israeli ruling clique pretends that their aggressive actions are intended to eliminate Hamas’ arsenal of rockets and thus guarantee the safety of Israel. But with every new war, Israel becomes a less secure place. It is increasingly isolated both in the region and internationally.

These brutal attacks on Gaza have added yet another twist to the bloody imbroglio of the Palestinian question. The spectacle of death and destruction will have filled yet another generation of Palestinian youth with feelings of rage and hatred, adding fresh fuel to the fire. In what way this can be presented as making Israel safe for future generations is s mystery.

Every Palestinian child that dies in an air raid deepens the mood of bitterness and feeds the thirst for revenge. Every “victory” merely sows the seeds of new wars, new terrorist acts, new murders and atrocities. On this path lies nothing but death and destruction for all the peoples of this unhappy region.

In this struggle, the IMT stands firmly on the side of the oppressed and against the oppressors. The question of who fires the first shot and all the rest of the diplomatic sophistry is of no interest.  We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Gaza against the barbarous onslaught of the Israeli aggressors. We will be to the forefront of every anti-war movement, protest and demonstration. We will endeavour to bring out the class content of the struggle, its anti-imperialist character. We will mercilessly expose the hypocrisy of western governments and their false “humanitarian” rhetoric.
We must build links with the most revolutionary sections of the youth in Gaza, who are fighting against imperialism and the Israeli state and also against the reactionary leadership of Hamas and the bourgeois collaborationist wing of the Palestinian leadership. Above all, we must maintain a broader perspective. The present conflict is just part of a far wider picture that encompasses the entre Middle East and cannot be understood outside this context.

The Gaza crisis is only the prelude to a far greater crisis. It is inseparably linked to Netanyahu’s plans for an air attack against Iran, which will set the entire Middle East ablaze. It will have incalculable consequences, economic, political and military. It will provoke a new wave of upheavals in the Arab world and beyond. Regimes will fall. People will take to the streets. The price of oil will go through the ceiling, and the world economy will take a nose dive, as it did in 1973 for similar reasons.

The Gaza crisis can be the match that reignites all the combustible material that has accumulated in the Middle East. It will mark a new stage in the ongoing Arab Revolution.

The stage is set for dramatic events on a world scale

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Religious Fanatic Slaughters His Family in Moscow

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Insanity, Religious Lunatics, Religious Nuts, Religious Psychos, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Religious Sadists

Religious fanatic slaughters his family in Moscow

Religious fanatic slaughters his family in Moscow. 48563.jpeg

The Moscow police investigate the triple murder, which was committed in Eastern Birulyovo on the southern outskirts of Moscow in the evening of November 19th.  The crime was committed in less than two weeks after the massacre in the office of a pharmaceutical company. Igor Televinov, 40, who could possibly be a mentally unbalanced religious fanatic, first killed his nine-year-old son, Alexander, and then six-year old daughter, Anna. Afterwards, the man killed his mother when she came back home from a walk. The man stabbed the three victims to death. Apparently, the victims could not show any resistance, Life News said.

After the murder, the man took the time to write a note, in which he asked to sell the apartment and bury the children with this money, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote.

The man wanted to kill himself in the end, but he also had to kill his wife first. When she came home from work, he met her on the doorstep and said that he had already sent his mother and children to heaven. The man offered his wife to follow them: he slashed the woman’s throat and face with the same knife.

The wounded woman somehow managed to escape from the apartment. All covered in blood, she rushed into her neighbor’s, shouting: “Lock the door!” The women called the police and an ambulance. The wounded woman was taken to hospital, her life is out of danger.

Having entered the apartment, where the tragedy occurred, law-enforcement officers, doctors and investigators saw the following picture. The bodies of the two children and their grandmother were lying in pools of blood. All the victims had their throats slit, their hands were folded crosswise on their chests, the little girl and the murderer’s mother had icons and burning candles put in between their fingers. The dead boy had an icing lamp in his hands, Vesti reports.

The man was arrested; he tried to show resistance to police, apparently staying in an inadequate condition. A criminal case was filed into the “murder of two or more persons” and “attempted murder.”

The man was unemployed. He was sick, he began to gain weight and would rarely go out. His wife worked in a barbershop. The woman was spending much of her salary on medications for her husband

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The Day God Punk’d Pat Roberston

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Pat Robertson, Religious Crazies, Religious Nuts, Religious scammers, Religious Wankers, Religious Windbags, Religious Zombies

Robertson Admits he Blew Election Prediction he Received from God

In January, televangelist Pat Robertson told 700 Club viewers that in his annual New Year’s “conversation” with God, the Almighty had revealed to him who the next president would  be. Up through Election Day, Robertson harshly criticized President Obama and the Democratic Party while praising Mitt Romney. Then, Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network predicted a GOP sweep, leaving Robertson utterly confounded by Obama’s victory.

Today, responding to a question from a viewer who wondered why her business is struggling since she thought God told her it would be successful, Robertson admitted that he sometimes misses God’s message. “So many of us miss God, I won’t get into great detail about elections but I sure did miss it, I thought I heard from God, I thought I had heard clearly from God, what happened?” Robertson replied, “You ask God, how did I miss it? Well, we all do and I have a lot of practice.”

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Does The Egyptian President Think Himself a Pharaoh?

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Human Liberty, Human Rights

Egyptian President Morsi Makes Himself a Pharaoh
Places himself above judicial oversight
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi took a very disturbing step today, essentially turning the government into an autocracy: Egypt’s Morsi Grants Himself Far-Reaching Powers.

Liberal and Christian members withdrew from the assembly during the past week to protest what they say is the hijacking of the process by Morsi’s allies, who they saw are trying to push through a document that will have an Islamist slant marginalizing women and minority Christians and infringing on personal liberties. Several courts have been looking into cases demanding the dissolution of the panel.

The Egyptian leader also decreed that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament is elected — which is not expected before next spring — are not subject to appeal in court or by any other authority. He also barred any court from dissolving the Islamist-led upper house of parliament, a largely toothless body that has also faced court cases.

The moves effectively remove any oversight on Morsi, the longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure who became Egypt’s first freely elected president last summer after the Feb. 11, 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They come as Morsi is riding high on lavish praise from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for mediating an end to eight days of fighting between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

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Renowned Philosopher Berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Islamophobes, Islamophobia, Islamophobia Industry, Islamophobic Conspiracies, Islamophobic Paranoia

Renowned Philosopher Berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

Posted by Amago

“Once, not very long ago, Americans and Europeans prided themselves on their enlightened attitudes of religious toleration, although everyone knew that the history of the West has actually been characterized by intense religious animosity and violence,” she said.

Why is it that priding yourself with enlightened attitudes of religious toleration only an ideal?  One reason why it has and still is an ideal is that religious toleration seems to be trumped by ”intense religious animosity and violence,” according to the renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum,

Renowned philosopher berates Western ‘Islamophobia’

By Olivia Patton

Renowned philosopher Martha Nussbaum addressed a packed auditorium Friday afternoon, berating Western Islamophobia, a problem Nussbaum said continues to plague the country today.

“Once, not very long ago, Americans and Europeans prided themselves on their enlightened attitudes of religious toleration, although everyone knew that the history of the West has actually been characterized by intense religious animosity and violence,” she said.

Nussbaum, a service professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, said blatant legislative discrimination against Muslims in the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, among other countries, requires examination.

“Our situation calls urgently for critical self examination as we try to uncover the roots of ugly fears and suspicions that currently disfigure all Western societies,” Nussbaum said.

Seventy percent of Oklahoma voters in 2010 opted to pass an amendment to the state’s constitution that singled out Shariah Law — the moral code of Islam — as something Oklahoma courts would not be influenced by.

Shariah law regulates Muslim personal conduct and provides rules on alcohol consumption, dietary practices, prayer and codes of honesty in business dealings.

The amendment, approved by voters, was ultimately struck down as unconstitutional, and never went into effect.

The measure mirrors other recent U.S. attempts at religious intolerance.

Nussbaum shed light on a proposed Tennessee law that would have criminalized the practice of Shariah law with a felony punishable up to 15 years in jail. A rewritten version of the bill that did not expressly reference Islam or Islamic law, but did still carry criminal penalties, eventually passed.

In addition, U.S. Muslim women have experienced harassment because of their personal choice to wear the hijab and burka, Nussbaum said.

A female Moroccan hostess who worked at Disney Land’s Grand California Hotel is suing Disney for the right to wear her head scarf during work. Her supervisors allegedly told her the head scarf went against the “Disney look” and that she would have to take a job outside of the view of customers if she wished to continue wearing it.

“What I favor in the undergraduate curriculum is that everyone should have some knowledge of the major world religions,” Nussbaum said. “So I think we’re lucky in a sense that we have more opportunities for this kind of intervention to learning and conversation.”

The University’s 15-month-old Institute of Humanities and Global Cultures sponsored the talk to enrich its program aimed at providing the structure for graduate students and faculty to further their work in the humanities.

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Anti-Science Mormon Kook Glenn Beck Declares The Earth Is 7,000 Years Old

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Anti-Science, Buffoon Glenn Beck, Religious Crazies, Religious Frauds, Religious Nuts, Religious Wankers

Glenn Beck Decides: The Earth Is 7,000 Years Old
Wrestling with a controversial issue
Via:- Charles Johnson
 

Following Marco Rubio’s comments about the age of the Earth (“I’m not a scientist, man”), it’s been tragically hilarious — and sadly revealing — to watch the entire right wing wrestle with the issue.

Here’s Glenn Beck and his crew struggling to figure out whether the Bible actually gives an age for the Earth, because of course that would be the true age, never mind what those secular elitist eggheads think, they’re going to hell anyway.

Beck eventually decides that since each day for God equals 1,000 years, and God created the universe in 7 days, that must mean the Earth is 7,000 years old.

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Israel Planned a “Nuclear Armageddon,” New Book Shows

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Israel Nuclear Armageddon, Jewish Taliban, Religious Propaganda, Religious Right, Right Wing, Right Wing Zionist Fanatics, Zionism

Israel planned a “nuclear Armageddon,” new book shows
Rod Such
The Electronic Intifada

Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country — And Why They Can’t Make Peace by former New York Times and Washington Post reporter Patrick Tyler is an unflinching history of the role of militarism in Israeli society. Tyler previously wrote A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East — from the Cold War to the War on Terror (2009), which examined how US presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush responded to events in the Middle East.

In this new work Tyler narrows his focus to the Israeli establishment. He sums up his thesis in the prologue: “Israel, six decades after its founding, remains a nation in thrall to an original martial impulse, the depth of which has given rise to succeeding generations of leaders who are stunted in their capacity to wield or sustain diplomacy as a rival to military strategy, who seem ever on the hair trigger in dealing with their regional rivals, and whose contingency planners embrace worst-case scenarios that often exaggerate complex or ambiguous developments as threats to national existence. They do so, reflexively and instinctively, in order to perpetuate a system of governance where national policy is dominated by the military.”

In Fortress Israel, Tyler mines a trove of US government documents declassified in 2007, many of which were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, where Tyler is a fellow.

These documents, especially those from the administration of Richard Nixon, have received scant attention from the corporate media. Tyler also relies on interviews he conducted with many Israeli leaders, as well as secondary sources — the most prominent of which is The Iron Wall (2000), a book by the Israeli historian Avi Shlaim.

Both The Iron Wall and Fortress Israel demolish key pillars of Israel’s long-standing propaganda effort to portray itself as the perpetual victim of surrounding, hostile Arab nations. They show instead that Israel was the aggressor in nearly all of its military conflicts.

The 1956 Suez Crisis, for example, resulted from a conspiracy hatched by France, Britain, and Israel in which Israel attacked Egyptian forces so that Britain and France could pretend to intervene as “stabilizing” forces and thereby maintain control of the Suez Canal. Similarly, both studies reveal that Israel launched the 1967 war not because it believed Egypt was about to attack but because it saw an unprecedented opportunity to destroy the Egyptian army.

Imperial interests

Tyler’s research demonstrates that the Israeli elites long ago recognized the usefulness of aligning Israel with Western imperialist interests in the Middle East and openly courted the US on that basis. Although the Eisenhower administration forced the withdrawal of Britain, France and Israel from Egypt in 1956, angered that all three countries acted without its support, it soon realized that Israel represented a valuable Cold War ally — especially as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser tilted toward the Soviet Union.

But Tyler argues that whereas the Eisenhower administration acted to restrain Israel “so that it might find accommodation with its neighbors,” the Nixon administration, especially National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, sought to use Israel to achieve US interests in the Cold War.

Drawing on the 2007 documents, Tyler quotes from a 1969 memo to Nixon from Richard Helms, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, saying Israeli aggression against Egypt should be encouraged “since it benefits the West as well as Israel.” A cover note by Kissinger argued that if Nasser were toppled, any successor would lack his “charisma.”

“Hit ‘em hard”

An Israeli bombing campaign against targets deep inside Egypt followed in January 1970. In May that year Nixon told Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban and Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli ambassador to the US, to “let ‘em have it! Hit ‘em as hard as you can!” One of those hits had already included an Egyptian elementary school, killing 47 children.

During this same period, Tyler notes, US officials became aware that Israel was a nuclear weapons power, after years of Israeli denials. Kissinger had just received a CIA estimate that Israel possessed at least ten nuclear weapons. According to a Kissinger memo, Rabin told him there were two reasons for developing the bomb: “’first to deter the Arabs from striking Israel, and second, if deterrence fails and Israel were about to be overrun, to destroy the Arabs in a nuclear Armageddon.’”

Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons — along with the peace accord it subsequently reached with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat — established Israel as a regional superpower, Tyler notes, adding that Israel reluctantly agreed to recognize Palestinian national rights as part of that accord. At the same time, he writes, the Israeli military establishment was determined to remain independent of the great powers and never allow them “to become the arbiters of peace.”

Nakba overlooked

Tyler demonstrates convincingly that the Israeli military often either ignored or overrode civilian authority. Although numerous examples support his thesis that the military is the dominant force in Israeli politics, he provides insufficient evidence to indicate that there were ever any substantive strategic differences between Israel’s civilian and military leaders in relation to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. He overemphasizes the “sabra [native born] culture” within the military as the wellspring of Israeli militarism, failing to note that Israel’s civilian leaders, even though many were not sabras, nevertheless were strategically aligned with Israel’s principal military ambition — to erase Palestine from the map.

But perhaps the book’s most significant failing is that it ignores the Nakba (catastrophe), the systematic ethnic cleansing that led to Israel’s foundation in 1948. This omission tends to frame the narrative as simply an ethnic conflict among nation-states rather than a conflict between a Palestinian national liberation struggle and a racist settler-colonial state.

To his credit, Tyler ultimately does address the core issue — the suppression of Palestinian national rights. He suggests Israel’s military elites may be determined to keep Palestinians permanently subjugated under occupation. However, his one-sided focus on the military obscures the role of Zionist ideology and its grip on both civilian and military elites.

Even the two-state solution favored by “liberal” Zionists anticipates the ongoing second-class status of Palestinians in Israel and the denial of refugees’ right of return. Ultimately, this is why the Israeli elites cannot make peace. Instead of envisioning a peace based on human rights, they can only propose a “peace” based on violence.

Rod Such is a freelance writer and former editor for World Book and Encarta encyclopedias. He is a member of the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign and Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights.

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“It is not a war. It is murder.” | Noam Chomsky

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Israels Ethnic Cleansing, Right Wing Jews Promote Ethnic Cleansing, Right Wing Jews Promote Genocide

‘It is not a war. It is murder.’
John Glaser

Here is Noam Chomsky’s statement on Israel’s latest aggression in Gaza:

“The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.

The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.

Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.

When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You can’t defend yourself when you’re militarily occupying someone else’s land. That’s not defense. Call it what you like, it’s not defense.”

Chomsky recently visited Gaza, writing about ‘the world’s biggest open-air prison’ at length upon return.

Contrary to how it is being portrayed, aggression does accurately describe what Israel is doing. Israel initiated this conflict. Israel had several opportunities to pacify the situation and re-establish a cease-fire, and chose instead to escalate. Civilian and government infrastructure is being targeted. As of the time of this writing, the number killed in Gaza has surpassed 80, 22 of them children, 9 of them elderly; 709 have been wounded, 230 of them children, 50 elderly. Three Israelis have been killed by Hamas rocket-fire.

Obama is still acting as a vocal advocate of Israel’s actions in Gaza. And Israel continues attack Gaza with an impunity granted them by American tax dollars, American support, American depravity.

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Top 10 Myths About Israel’s Attack on Gaza

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Gaza, Israel, Israeli Ethnic Cleansing, Israeli Genocide, Palestinians

Top 10 Myths About Israel’s Attack on Gaza

These misconceptions are spread by the American media.

1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a ‘peace process’ with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In fact, Israel has refused to cease colonizing and stealing Palestinian land long enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with them. Tel Aviv routinely announces new, unilateral house-building on the Palestinian West Bank. There is no peace process. It is an Israeli and American sham. Talking about a peace process is giving cover to Israeli nationalists who are determined to grab everything the Palestinians have and reduce them to penniless refugees (again).

2. Actions such as the assault on Gaza can achieve no genuine long-term strategic purpose. They are being launched to ensure that Jewish-Israelis are the first to exploit key resources. Rattling sabers at the Palestinians creates a pretext for further land-grabs and colonies on Palestinian land. That is, the military action against the people of Gaza is a diversion tactic; the real goal is Greater Israel, an assertion of Israeli sovereignty over all the territory once held by the British Mandate of Palestine.

3. Israeli hawks represent their war of aggression as in ‘self-defense.’ But the UK Israeli chief rabbi admitted on camera that that the Gaza attack actually ‘had something to do with Iran.’

4. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinians of Gaza as “bad neighbors” who don’t accept Israel. But 40% of the people in Gaza are refugees, mostly living in refugee camps, from families in pre-1948 Palestine that had lived there for millennia.

They were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 Zionist ethnic cleansing campaign. Israelis are now living in their homes and farming their land, and they were never paid any reparations for the crimes done to them.[pdf] “Israel’s failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees over the past six decades is in blatant violation of international law.” Israel does not accept Palestine’s right to exist, even though it is constantly demanding that everyone, including the displaced and occupied Palestinians, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Click to enlarge.

5. Israeli hawks and their American clones depict Gaza as a foreign, hostile state with which Israel is at war. In fact, the Gaza strip is a small territory of 1.7 million people militarily occupied by Israel (something in which the UN and other international bodies concur). Israelis do not allow it to have a port or airport, nor to export most of what it produces. Palestinians cannot work about a third of its land, which is reserved by Israel as a security buffer. As an occupied territory, it is covered by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by their military occupier. Indiscriminate bombing of occupied territories by the occupier is clearly illegal in international law.

6. Israeli hawks see themselves as innocent victims of bewildering Palestinian rage from Gaza. But Israel not only has kept Palestinians of Gaza in the world’s largest outdoor penitentiary, they have them under an illegal blockade that for some years aimed at limiting their nutrition without altogether starving them to death. I wrote earlier:

“The food blockade had real effects. About ten percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under 5 have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. A recent report [pdf] by Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians found that, in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers. “

If any foreign power surrounded Israel, destroyed Haifa port and Tel Aviv airport, and prevented Israeli exports from being exported, what do you think Israelis would do? Oh, that’s right, it is rude to see both Palestinians and Israelis as equal human beings.

7. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinian residents of Gaza as followers of Hamas, a party-militia of the Muslim religious right. But half of Palestinians in Gaza are minors, who never voted for Hamas and cannot be held collectively responsible for that party.

8. Israeli hawks justify their aggression on the Palestinians on grounds of self-defense. But Israel is a country of 7.5 million people with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16s and F-18s, plus 400 nuclear warheads. Gaza is a small occupied territory of 1.7 million which has no heavy weaponry, just some old guns and some largely ineffectual rockets. (Israelis cite hundreds of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza in 2012; but until Israel’s recent attack they had killed not a single Israeli, though they did wound a few last March when fighting between Palestinians and Israelis escalated.) Gaza is a threat to Israel the way the Transkei Bantustan was a threat to Apartheid South Africa. As for genuine asymmetrical threats from Gaza to Israel, they could be dealt with by giving the Palestinians a state and ceasing the blockade imposed on them, or in the worst case scenario counter-terrorism targeted at terrorists rather than indiscriminate bombing campaigns.

9. Israeli hawks maintain that they were provoked into the attack. But actually Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated earlier this week, had been engaged in talks with the Israelis about a truce. Assassinations achieved by the ruse of openness to peace talks are guarantees of no further peace talks.

10. Although most American media is a cheering section for the Likud Party,in fact the world is increasingly done out with Israel’s aggressiveness. Boycotts and sanctions will likely grow over time, leaving Israeli hawks with a deficit…

Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan
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The Monsters of Israel | Ariel Sharon’s Son Calls for Genocide in Gaza

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish fascists, Jewish Genocide, Jews For Genocide

Ariel Sharon’s Son Calls for Genocide in Gaza
Posted by Randall Gross
Using sports metaphors and the “none are innocent because they elected Hamas” logic this JPOST op ed writer calls for genocide.
Is this civilized commentary?

So what’s up with the Jerusalem Post hosting calls for genocide?

Palestinians at a home destroyed in IAF strike

[Link: www.jpost.com…]

Why do our citizens have to live with rocket fire from Gaza while we fight with our hands tied? Why are the citizens of Gaza immune? If the Syrians were to open fire on our towns, would we not attack Damascus? If the Cubans were to fire at Miami, wouldn’t Havana suffer the consequences? That’s what’s called ‘deterrence’ – if you shoot at me, I’ll shoot at you. There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.

Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, and the lives of our soldiers and civilians spared.

IF THE government isn’t prepared to go all the way on this, it will mean reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip. Not a few neighborhoods in the suburbs, as with Cast Lead, but the entire Strip, like in Defensive Shield, so that rockets can no longer be fired.

 

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