Bible study gone wrong: Inspired by a church sermon on the Book of Genesis, a Florida woman allegedly killed a 2-year-old girl and attempted to kill the girl’s 10-year-old brother in a failed attempt to recreate the Biblical story of Abraham.
According to police, Kymberley Dawn Lucas, 40, is accused of killing 2-year-old Elliana and trying to kill her 10-year-old brother Ethan before trying, unsuccessfully, to end her own life.
Lucas and her longtime partner had raised the boy and girl since their birth.
Investigators report Lucas attended a sermon by Metropolitan Community Church pastor Lea Brown this past Sunday. Brown’s sermon covered the Biblical story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice his son Isaac on orders from God, only to be stopped by God at the last minute.
Pastor Brown says she stands by her sermon on Abraham, saying “It’s what I was called to do, there’s no way anyone could have predicted this.”
Brown confirmed that the children and both women attended her service, and that her sermon covered Genesis 22, in which God challenges Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.
In the Biblical account, Abraham follows God’s instructions, taking the boy to a mountain, laying Isaac on an altar in preparation for the sacrifice. At the last second, God orders Abraham to spare the child.
In a suicide note Lucas reports that unlike the Biblical account of Abraham, God did not step in and stop her from taking the child’s life. An excerpt from the note reads:
“Lea’s sermon really, really touched me yesterday but God never told me to stop!”
Lucas is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail and faces charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Reminds one of the series “Trueblood” where vampires are forbidden entry into peoples homes without permission!
Brian Fischer wants us to know that God won’t go anywhere that he’s not invited. His god is like a vampire that way, I guess!
I just don’t know anymore. You’d think that someone from the Christian mainstream would step up and explain “omnipresence” to Fischer. You’d think someone would explain that a God who will go to Nineveh won’t stop at a school room door. You’d think that some influential Christian would explain that Christians don’t worship a God that petty. But there’s never any pushback.
That leaves idiots like Fischer to us; atheists, liberal Christians and religious minorities calling them out. Is there any point? We can chronicle all the horrible things that people like him say, but they just keep on saying them. You can’t embarrass them. You can’t shame them. They live to be offended, and every attack against them just fuels their persecution complex.
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
Jacobs Claims to have Thwarted Numerous Terrorist Attacks
Submitted by Ariella on Friday, 11/9/2012 1:15 pm
Self-proclaimed “prophets” Mike and Cindy Jacobs of Generals International continued to spew their predictions about terrorism, natural disasters and economic turmoil on their show God Knows. Jacobs—who previously alleged that she helped avert bombings—revealed that she along with other prophets were having dreams in 2011 about a looming terrorist attack, and explains that their visions were confirmed by the events in Benghazi.
Mike Jacobs contended that there were even more terrorist plots, but that they had been thwarted by “the prayer cover that has been placed over the United States by various prayer groups and individuals praying.”
Malala Yousafzai has bullet removed from head after Taliban shooting
Relatives say 14-year-old Pakistani peace activist appears to be doing well after three-hour operation
Army doctors treating Malala Yousafzai in Peshawar. Photograph: EPA
Pakistani surgeons have removed a bullet from the head of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old schoolgirl and peace activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman on Tuesday.
Relatives of the girl, who rose to fame for her outspoken opposition to Taliban militancy in her home town of Swat, said she appeared to be doing well after a three-hour operation.
Her father, Ziaudduin Yousafzai, said doctors were encouraged by a CT scan taken after the operation. She was unconscious but had moved her hand slightly after coming out of surgery.
Malala could be moved abroad for further treatment. A plane is on standby in Peshawar and Rehman Malik, the interior minister, has contacted the family to make sure their passports are in order.
Three years ago Malala blogged on the BBC website about the terror of living amid a rising Taliban insurgency. Last year she received the country’s first peace prize. She was on a Taliban hitlist for publicly advocating what the movement derides as “secular governance”.
On Tuesday morning as she and her classmates sat on a bus to take them home after a midterm exam, three men reportedly approached in search of Malala.
“The man who stopped the vehicle signalled to his other armed accomplices that Yousafzai was inside,” the bus driver, Usman Ali, told the Express Tribune newspaper. “Another armed man went to the back of the vehicle and started firing inside.”
Malala attempted to deny her own identity, but one of the other girls pointed her out. According to the Express Tribune, a total of four girls, including Malala, were injured.
On Tuesday the Taliban appeared more than happy to take the credit for the attempted murder. “She was pro-west, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her ideal leader,” said a spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan. “She was young but she was promoting western culture in Pashtun areas.”
The attack has horrified many in Pakistan, especially liberals who have long been aghast at what they see as the feeble response by the state and some religious political parties towards the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani offshoot of the hardline Islamist movement that closed down girl’s schools and ran public executions when it was in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
On Wednesday, Pakistan’s parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the attack. Even the head of Pakistan’s military, General Ashfaq Kayani, made public his anger during a meeting with Malala’s parents at a military hospital in Peshawar.
The attack has alarmed residents of Swat, which was infiltrated by Taliban insurgents who burned schools and executed its enemies. An operation by the Pakistani military eventually forced the Taliban out of the valley in 2009, but the attempt to kill Malala indicates their continued ability to mount attacks in an area still living under a heavy army presence.
“The suicide bombings and blasts may be over in Swat but this attack has rung alarm bells reminding us that militants are still in Swat,” said Iqbal Hussain, one of Malala’s teachers.
He said the girl’s classmates were anxious to return to school despite the attack. “Girls of Swat are courageous and bold and they want to continue their education they cannot be bettered by these tactics of the militants,” Hussain said.
The religious right is more powerful than ever, using its massive annual revenue and grassroots troops to promote a right-wing ideology and undermine church and state separation.
The movement known as the Religious Right is the number-one threat to church-state separation in America. This collection of organizations is well funded and well organized; it uses its massive annual revenue and grassroots troops to undermine the wall of separation in communities nationwide.
Americans United staff members have carefully researched this movement, and here are the 10 Religious Right groups that pose the greatest challenges to church-state separation. Most of these organizations are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, but the financial data includes some affiliated 501(c)(4) lobbying organizations operating alongside the main organizations. The figures come from official IRS filings or other reliable sources.
1. Jerry Falwell Ministries/ Liberty University/Liberty Counsel
Revenue: $522,784,095
Although Jerry Falwell, a Religious Right icon and founder of the Moral Majority, died in 2007, his empire is going strong thanks mostly to Liberty University, a Lynchburg, Va., school now run by his son, Jerry Falwell Jr. Following in his father’s footsteps, Falwell Jr. regularly meddles in partisan politics – from local contests to presidential races. This year, he invited Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney to give Liberty’s commencement address, introducing him as “the next president of the United States.” A second Falwell son, Jonathan, is pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, a mega-church in Lynchburg. Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal outfit founded by Mat Staver that is now based at Liberty University, where it launches lawsuits undermining church-state separation and encourages pastors to get involved in partisan political activity.
2. Pat Robertson Empire
Revenue: $434,971,231
Known for his years of involvement in far-right politics, TV preacher Pat Robertson has forged a vast Religious Right empire anchored by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Robertson also runs Regent University and a right-wing legal group, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). (Attorney Jay Sekulow heads ACLJ, as well as his own quasi-independent legal outfit, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism.) CBN, which brings in the bulk of Robertson’s revenue, broadcasts far-right religious and political invective laced with attacks on church-state separation, a concept Robertson has called a “myth” and a “lie of the left.” His “700 Club” TV program is a powerful forum for the promotion of right-wing ideology and favored politicians. Robertson has been welcomed into the halls of government. The current governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, is a Regent U. graduate.
3. Focus on the Family (includes its 501(c)(4) political affiliate CitizenLink)
Revenue: $104,463,950
Fundamentalist Christian James Dobson founded Focus on the Family to offer “biblical” solutions to family problems. Dobson, a child psychologist by training, soon branched out into the dissemination of hardcore right-wing politics with an international reach. Dobson has been a major player in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., and Focus-aligned “family policy councils” pressure lawmakers and influence legislation in 36 states. In fact, the Colorado-based organization frequently plays a key role in fighting gay rights and restricting abortion at the state level. Jim Daly is now president of Focus; Dobson left the organization in 2010 but remains active on the political scene.
The ADF may have changed its name, but it still promotes a familiar Religious Right agenda. The Arizona-based organization, which was founded by far-right TV and radio preachers, attacks church-state separation, blasts gay rights, assails reproductive freedom and seeks to saturate the public schools with its narrow version of fundamentalism. In recent years, the ADF, headed by Ed Meese acolyte Alan Sears, has worked aggressively to overturn a federal law that bars tax-exempt churches and other nonprofits from intervening in partisan elections. The group says church-state separation is not in the Constitution and calls the church-state wall “fictitious.”
5. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Lobbying Expenditures: $26,662,111
The USCCB for years has lobbied in Washington, D.C., to make the hierarchy’s ultra-conservative stands on reproductive rights, marriage, school vouchers and other public policies the law for all to follow. This year, the USCCB escalated its efforts in the “culture war” arena, forming the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. Led by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, the committee seeks to reduce Americans’ access to birth control, block efforts to expand marriage equality and ensure federal funding of church-affiliated social services, even if the services fail to meet government requirements. American Catholics often disagree with the hierarchy’s stance on social issues, but the bishops’ clout in Washington, D.C., and the state legislatures is undeniable.
6. American Family
Association
Revenue: $17,955,438
Founded by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, the Tupelo, Miss.-based AFA once focused on battling “indecent” television shows. When that failed, the group branched out to advocate for standard Religious Right issues such as opposing gay rights, promoting religion in public schools and banning abortion. In recent years, AFA staffer Bryan Fischer has become notorious for making inflammatory statements. Fischer has asserted that Adolf Hitler invented church-state separation and has proposed kidnapping children being raised by same-sex couples. The AFA, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, frequently announces boycotts of companies that don’t give in to its demands. The organization says it operates nearly 200 radio stations nationwide.
This group, an offshoot of Focus on the Family, is headed by GOP operative and ex-Louisiana legislator Tony Perkins. It is now the leading Religious Right organization in Washington. Every year, FRC Action sponsors a “Values Voter Summit” to promote far-right politicians and rally Religious Right forces nationwide. The 2012 edition hosted many top Republican politicians and drew about 2,000 attendees. The organization frequently assails public education, political progressives, reproductive justice and the church-state wall and seeks to form a far-right coalition with the Tea Party. FRC is also known to engage in harsh gay bashing and has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Founded to counter feminism, Concerned Women for America (CWA) claims to be “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.” Its mission is to “bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy.” CWA was organized by Tim and Beverly LaHaye in 1979 to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, and when that issue faded, it moved on to other Religious Right agenda items. The group attacks public schools for allegedly promoting “secular humanism” and supports the teaching of creationism in science classes. It also vehemently opposes abortion and gay rights.
9. Faith & Freedom Coalition
Revenue: $5,494,640
This 501(c)(4) advocacy group was founded by former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed. He formed the organization after his run for lieutenant governor in Georgia was derailed because of his ties to disgraced casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In just three years of operation it already boasts more than 500,000 members and claims affiliates in 30 states. Reed is infamous for exaggerating his organizations’ clout, but his latest group is certainly making political waves. In 2012, it hosted forums for GOP presidential hopefuls in four states. Faith & Freedom Coalition claims to have budgeted $10 million in 2012 to lure conservative religious voters to the polls.
10. Council for National Policy
Revenue: $1,976,747
The Council for National Policy exists to do just one thing: organize meetings of right-wing operatives, Religious Right leaders and wealthy business interests at posh hotels around the country to share ideas, plot strategy and vet GOP presidential candidates. Membership is by invitation only, and the group seeks no media attention. Despite its small size and shadowy operations, the CNP – founded by Religious Right godfather Tim LaHaye – wields a great deal of influence, showing that even organizations with modest budgets can have a significant impact. U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), after his now-infamous “legitimate rape” comment, showed up at the next CNP meeting to ensure ongoing financial support as he runs for the U.S. Senate. Heritage Foundation Vice President Becky Norton Dunlop currently serves as CNP president, with Phyllis Schlafly and FRC’s Tony Perkins also taking leadership roles.
Simon Brown is a communications associate at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Today’s moment of right wingreligious fanaticism comes from former child star Kirk Cameron, who says, “one of our parties is wondering whether the name God should be in the platform,” but according to America’s founding fathers, “God is the platform!”
The crowd cheers this line in a very disturbing way.
Rick Perry Joins the Heartless Anti-Choice Fanatics
Via Charles Johnson
It’s horrifying to hear almost all the GOP presidential candidates proudly saying that victims of rape or incest should be forced to give birth to an attacker’s child. There’s nothing that makes the utter heartlessness of this fanatical agenda more evident, and now Rick Perry (who previously supported rape/incest exceptions) has announced that he’s a monster like the rest of them: Perry changes stance to oppose all abortions.
CNN – Texas Gov. Rick Perry revealed a hardening in his stance on abortion Tuesday, telling a crowd in Iowa that he opposed abortions in all cases, including when a woman had been raped or the victim of incest.
Previously, Perry had not opposed the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life was threatened.
Responding to a question about the change in position, Perry said, “You’re seeing a transformation.”
Perry told the crowd at his campaign stop that the decision came after watching a documentary on abortion produced by former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
“That transformation was after watching the DVD, ‘The Gift of Life,’” Perry said. “And I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest. And some powerful, some powerful stories in that DVD.”
Perry said a woman who appeared in the movie who said she was a product of rape moved him to change his mind about abortion.
“She said, ‘My life has worth.’ It was a powerful moment for me,” Perry said.
Six Die After Evangelical Churches Tell Them to Stop Taking HIV Medication
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According to Sky News, evangelical churches in four British cities have been claiming to cure HIV through faith healing. Three undercover reporters entered the Synagogue Church of All Nations, told pastors that they were HIV positive, and all were informed that they could be healed.
The healing process involves the pastor shouting, over the person being healed, for the devil to come out of their body, and spraying water in their face.
Pastors also told the reporters posing as HIV patients that they should throw away their medication after the healing because they had been cured.
If it occurs to you that this might be dangerous, you will be saddened but not surprised to learn that at least six people have died after being told by these churches to stop taking their HIV medication. I applaud the efforts of Sky News to investigate this atrocity. I don’t think America’s corporate media would dare to do something like this. I sincerely hope British authorities prosecute the hell out of these churches.
The extreme hostility towards atheists in America can probably be traced to two related factors: America’s view of itself as a religious nation entrusted with a special mission from God and America’s fight against communism in the Cold War.
I think he’s right to mention these historical factors, as they are certainly relevant. However, I think that there are deeper psychological processes going on. Austin mentions scapegoating and refers indirectly to others like fear of modernity and loss of privilege. These bring us closer to what is likely happening.
For the most part, I’m not so sure that hatred and bigotry against atheists is so different from any other case where an out-group has been demonization and dehumanized. I suspect that the heart of the matter is that atheists have been despised because we are different. We have always been perceived as failing to conform with a standard that has been equated with morality (i.e., religious belief).
To the degree that the hatred and bigotry we face differs from that experienced by other minority groups, this is likely a result of our very existence being viewed as a threat. The only way we can be tolerated is if we remain silent and invisible. As soon as we open our mouths, we pose a danger to an increasingly indefensible belief system.
Just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, haredim can now get a deal on evil eye removal.
Do you think the machashayfa next door is hexing you? You’re a phone call away from removing her curse. A mere $50 will do it. And your kabbalist savior even takes credit cards.
The deranged far right inspires another violent nut
Imagine our surprise (NOT!) that the accused White House shooter Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez drew some of his inspiration from the crazed conspiracy ravings of Uber Nut Alex Jones!
Jake Chapman is also scheduled to make the trip to Washington. The AK-47 that Mr. Ortega is accused of using to fire on the White House was registered to Mr. Chapman, who said in an interview that he is known to friends as “the gun guy.” He said that he sold the gun to Mr. Ortega in March for $550 and that he believed it was the first gun Mr. Ortega owned.
Mr. Chapman, 21, said he had not heard Mr. Ortega talk of taking violent action. But more than a year ago, he recalled, Mr. Ortega and others watched an antigovernment film on the Internet called “The Obama Deception,” which was written, directed and produced by Alex Jones, a Texas-based conservative talk show host who has espoused a number of conspiracy theories involving the federal government.
Even if the shooter is a thorough crackpot his delusions did not form in a vacuum. Hate sites like Prison Planet, Atlas Shrugs, and Farrah’s World Net Daily all do most of the heavy lifting for these conspiracy theories and delusions. Oprah is not a hate site, but she does her share of aiding and abetting delusion with promotion of pseudoscience and magical thinking disguised as pop pscyh self help, so it’s really not a contradiction that he addressed a video to her, even though many on the right will grasp at that and say aha!
The alleged shooter charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, apparently thinks our Commander in Chief is an agent of Satan in an End Times war. Sarah Posner has explained the basics in an article “‘Obama the Antichrist’ and end-times doctrine.” I warned about the possibility of the demonization of Obama leading to more violence in a book chapter published in 2010 “The Roots of Anti-Obama Rhetoric.” Here is a slightly revised version of what I wrote:
Many Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. Others are convinced he was not born in Hawaii and is thus not eligible to be President. Some say Obama is the Antichrist of Biblical prophecy.
A September 2009 poll in New Jersey found that 14% of Republicans believed that President Obama was the Antichrist—Satan’s agent in the End Times according to one reading of the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Another 15% thought it might be possible.
The results across political allegiances, however, were also troubling; with 8% of respondents statewide saying they thought Obama was the Antichrist and 13% stating they “aren’t sure”. The poll also found that “21% of respondents, including 33% of Republicans, express the belief that Obama was not born in the United States”.
According to the pollster, these are “eye popping numbers” (“Extremism in New Jersey”, 2009). The mobilization of apocalyptic expectation among Christian Evangelicals in the United States has been shown to be an effective mobilization strategy by the Christian Right and allies in the Republican Party (Boyer, 1992; Fuller 1995). This is especially true among fundamentalists (Barron, 1992; Mason, 2002; Berlet, 2008). This millenarian mood is spread from religious into secular communities, often through conspiracy theories (Brasher, 2000).
The Suspected White House Shooter’s Right Wing Ideas
An anti-government religious fanatic who thinks Obama is the anti-Christ
Charles Johnson
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama, and in light of the right wing blogosphere’s ongoing attempts to link Ortega to the Occupy Wall Street protests, it should be pointed out that what we know so far about his delusional ideas falls much more in line with right wing religious ideology: Idaho Man Threatened Obama, Officials Say.
Mr. Ortega-Hernandez’s family had reported him missing in Idaho Falls last month, after he drove away in the Honda Accord, the complaint said. The Secret Service has said it did not have Mr. Ortega-Hernandez on record as having made any threats against the president. But after the shooting, several acquaintances said he had been fixated on Mr. Obama.
Besides the one friend who told investigators that Mr. Ortega-Hernandez had said he believed the president was the “Antichrist” and that he needed to kill him, another friend said he stated “President Obama was the problem with the government,” was “the devil,” and that he “needed to be taken care of.” The second friend also said he appeared to be “preparing for something.”
Mr. Ortega-Hernandez has had legal problems in Idaho, Texas, and Utah, including charges related to drug offenses, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, officials have said. He is said to be heavily tattooed, with the word “Israel” on his neck and pictures of rosary beads and hands clasped in prayer on his chest.
The crazy idea that President Obama is the anti-Christ is a very common meme on the religious right; here’s one of many articles at World Net Daily promoting this idiocy: Did Jesus actually reveal name of the ‘antichrist’?
The name that “Jesus revealed,” according to this article, is Barack Obama.
So many people were shocked by the video of that Texas judge hitting his child, but I wasn’t. I’ve been reading for a long time about the abusive child-rearing practices of extreme Christian fundamentalists, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that girl’s father thought he was merely doing his duty and “raising a godly child.”
The books of Michael and Debi Pearl are frequently implicated in that kind of abuse. Here’s a heart-wrenching post from a reader over at the No Longer Quivering blog, started by a woman who left the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement:
When the Pearls’ methods failed, I got stuck on method a. Blame yourself. I re-read To Train Up a Child. When I knew I had it right, I hit harder. Prayed harder. Did the whole disciplinary routine smiling from ear to ear and cooing like a dove. My babies acted freaked out by my grin (it was a lot like Debi Pearl’s vacuous, huge grin in the Tuchman interview) and were enraged by my efforts to “lovingly reconcile” with them after spankings. They kept up the fight. At this point, I think I would have admitted to myself that something was wrong with this whole child-training method and stopped torturing the toddlers all day to no avail. If you have to be cruel to get the Pearl method to work on some kids, it’s wrong. I had a husband, however, who was firmly convinced that Pearl was right. He went right for the b. and c. options: hit harder and blame the kid.
Options b. and c. are hard to do without getting angry. They are hard to do without leaving bruises, especially since Pearl discipline is cumulative: faced with entrenched rebellion, you are supposed to hit repeatedly and in the same areas. My ex-husband got angry with the kids for thwarting the Pearl method, but he remained coldly self-controlled. He also left bruises. A lot of bruises.
Why didn’t I stop him? I finally did, but early in my marriage I was paralyzed by fear and brainwashed by bad teaching. We both feared raising ungodly kids. We were looking for confirmation that some part of this system worked, and my ex-husband began to get results. The children flinched when he even moved. Cowered when he reached for a spanking implement. Had semi-seizures on the carpet following “biblical correction.” We got compliance with our wishes. Eventually, there wasimmediate and unquestioning compliance. My ex-husband had quelled the rebellion in three kids. He had created unfocused, freaked-out little robots who obeyed. The joy and the peace that was supposed to suffuse our home according to Pearl, we thought we could dispense with. Maybe it would come later; the Pearls are a little vague on where the peace and love should come into the process, just as they are a little vague on how you can keep “chastising” repeatedly with progressively increased force in the same places without leaving bruises.
To Train Up a Child is a manual of progressive violence against children. Not only are there no stopgaps to prevent child abuse, the book is a mandate to use implements to inflict increasingly intense pain in the face of continued disobedience. The part about not causing injury is vague and open to interpretation, but the part about never backing down or shirking your parental duty to spank harder and harder is crystal clear. The Pearls’ teachings will lead, inescapably, to extremely strong-willed kids being abused and sometimes murdered by fundamentalist parents who are determined to “break” those children. The Pearls’ defenders will say, “Oh, they took it to an extreme and should have known better.” If anyone knows better than to keep inflicting more severe discipline on an intractable child, they can only apply that knowledge by scuttling the Pearls’ sadistic teaching and being more reasonable.
Whenever I read stories like this, I think of a lovely young woman I once interviewed, someone who grew up on the streets with her schizophrenic mother. By the time she was 16, she was pregnant. Fortunately, by the time she was 18, she’d been taken into a new program for young mothers that essentially re-parented them: Taught them to budget, balance a checkbook, plan meals, discipline children. She told me she was deeply haunted by guilt over having hit her toddler: “It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her – I did. I hit her to make her behave. I thought that’s what good parents did, and I wanted to be a good parent.”
That’s the sad part of all this violence. For whatever twisted reason, religious or psychological, many parents still believe they’re only doing what good parents do.
Last month, Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote that if you wanted to come up with a bumper sticker that defined the Republican Party’s platform it would be this: “Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP.” With their unrelenting attempts to slash Social Security, end Medicare and Medicaid and destroy the social safety net, Republicans are, indeed, on a quest of reversal. But they have set their sights on an even bolder course than Pearlstein acknowledges in his column: It’s not just the 20th century they have targeted for repeal; it’s the 18th and 19th too.
The 18th century was defined, in many ways, by the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement based on the idea that reason, rational discourse and the advancement of knowledge, were the critical pillars of modern life. The leaders of the movement inspired the thinking of Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin; its tenets can be found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. But more than 200 years later, those basic tenets — the very notion that facts and evidence matter — are being rejected, wholesale, by the 21st-century Republican Party.
The contempt with which the party views reason is staggering. Republicans have become proudly and unquestionably anti-science. (It is their litmus test, though they would probably reject the science behind litmus paper.) With the exception of Jon Huntsman, who polls about as well as Darwin would in a Republican primary, the Republican presidential candidates have either denied the existence of climate change, denied that it has been caused — and can be reversed — by man, or apologized for once holding a different view. They have come to this conclusion not because the science is inconclusive, but because they believe, as a matter of principle, that scientific evidence is no evidence at all.
It’s on that basis that Ron Paul can say of evolution, “I think it’s a theory and I don’t accept it as a theory.” It’s on that basis that Rick Perry can call evolution “it’s a theory that’s out there, but one that’s got some gaps in it.” And it’s on that same basis, that same rejection of science, that Perry can say, “I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how old the earth is.”
Then there’s Michele Bachmann, who has embraced the idea that the HPV vaccine can cause mental retardation, although not a single piece of medical evidence backs up her claim. How, then, did she come to that conclusion? That’s simple: A woman came up to her at a debate and told her so. Scientific evidence is anathema; superstitious and anecdotal asides, on the other hand, deserve to be repeated and amplified on a national stage, the consequences, in this case to countless women and girls, be damned.
This kind of guttural rejection of reason, evidence and science trickles into just about every aspect of Republican ideology. There’s Herman Cain’s much-discussed 9-9-9 plan, for example, which has been eviscerated by independents, conservative and progressive economists alike, but which Cain continues to champion. Why? Because, he argues, the skeptics haven’t read his analysis yet — as if he is entitled not just to his own facts but to his own math. It’s that same worldview that makes Cain comfortable, when asked about the Occupy Wall Street protests, to say, “I don’t [have] facts to back this up, but I happen to believe . . . ” Without facts, does it really matter how he finished the sentence?
Perry now fancies himself a flat-taxer, a position that might as well make him a flat-earther. A flat tax is, in his mind, a job creation proposal. In a reality based on reason and logic, it is a ticket straight back to recession. He might be giving — or getting — lessons from his fellow Republican, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who after boldly lying about Planned Parenthood on the floor of the Senate had his press flack explain that his remarks were not intended to be a factual statement. What then, one wonders, were they intended to be?
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this kind of behavior is constantly rewarded by the media. As Al Gorenoted in “An Inconvenient Truth,” while fewer than 1 percent of peer-reviewed scientific journals questioned the reality of man-made global warming, about half of all journalistic accounts did. In an age where media is obsessed with balance, facts are sidelined in favor of dueling opinions and false equivalence. That one is based on reason and science, the other on neither, is treated as entirely irrelevant. It’s a system ripe for exploitation, and conservatives are happy to oblige.
It seems worth reminding the candidates that these debates have been settled, many for decades, some for centuries and that the year is 2011, not 1611. In the coming decades, science — and a respect for science — will prove crucial to confronting our greatest global challenges, whether that means reducing our carbon footprint to combat climate change, finding new treatments and new cures to the diseases that ail us, or developing new innovations that can lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. We cannot afford to ignore the power of science or the problems we will need it to solve. Nor can we afford to make decisions about our economy, and our future, without reason or sound evidence. It’s time to take back the Enlightenment.
The Religious Right habitually camouflages it’s nefarious Christian Nationalist Worldview behind a phoney “pro-Israel” facade.
Religious fanatic John Hagee believes god sent Hitler to exterminate Jews and thus, as act and prophetic directive of his god, obviously a righteous and just genocide.
Like Catholic Hitler, John Hagee believes that unless Jews are converted to his Christ, they will be eradicated in the fires of hell that is, their final annihilation.
One has to wonder how even certain Right Wing Jews can be so utterly blind and continue support a religious buffoon who considers the destruction of Jews an inexorable, righteous and prophetic dictate — of his
psychopathic god?!
[As previously blogged, conspiracism or conspiracy thinking and religious fundamentalism go hand in hand. Both are irrational world views. Conspiracism, like religion, provides a false sense of enlightenment and “… a thread of insistence exists that only certain, truly enlightened people can see the truth behind the secret plots. Most conspiracies are, so the thinking goes, invisible to the vast majority of sheeplike citizens who go grazing through the pasture of life, never suspecting the evil wolves lurking behind the rocks of everyday occurrences.
In a way, conspiracism can be comforting to true believers because it removes the scary notion of randomness from the universe. For some, conspiracies can seem like an extension of religious faith, with God and Satan locked in a struggle for supremacy on Earth. In fact, many conspiracists are strongly connected to a belief in the coming of the end of the world. After a specific series of world events happens, these “millenialists” believe, those events will usher in Armageddon, the final battle between the forces of good and evil on Earth.”]
A double-whammy of stupidity from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, in conversation with Pat Robertson:
The Torah, in ancient Jewish wisdom the Bible, actually explains something which we have lived through which is one of the great mysteries: the plot of 9/11… Not only do we find references in Zachariah to four mysterious crafts that come through between two mountains made of metal, in biblical terminology mountains can be natural mountains or also anything tall that grows up like two buildings, also the idea that the plot was hatched not in Mecca or Medina or Riyadh or anywhere else in Saudi Arabia, that plot was hatched in Hamburg, Germany…
Lapin is making a garbled and absurd reference to Zechariah 6: 1-8:
I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black, the third white, and the fourth dappled—all of them powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these, my lord?” The angel answered me, “These are the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. The one with the black horses is going toward the north country, the one with the white horses toward the west, and the one with the dappled horses toward the south.” When the powerful horses went out, they were straining to go throughout the earth. And he said, “Go throughout the earth!” So they went throughout the earth. Then he called to me, “Look, those going toward the north country have given my Spirit rest in the land of the north.”
There are no “mysterious crafts”: instead, the author is obviously describing symbolic chariots for the four “spirits of heaven”. The “mountains of bronze” are not buildings: the image has been taken from Babylonian mythology to represent the gateway into heaven. It should be further noted that the chariots are “coming out from between” the two mountains, rather than crashing into them, and that their drivers are spirits sent to do God’s work around the world, rather than terrorists sent to the USA to massacre people. Lapin is either a fool or a fraud: but either way, it’s clear from this that he doesn’t give a damn about interpreting the Bible with any kind of integrity. And the same goes for Robertson, for endorsing such a farrago of nonsense.
But while we’re still trying to swallow that, Lapin serves up a dessert. 9/11, he explains,
… was based on a dream that Adolf Hitler had in 1943 which was to fly suicide Luftwaffe German air force bombers into the towers of Manhattan… That was a Hitler dream described in a book called ‘Spandau Diary’ written by one of the Nazis who was captured after the war and who witnessed, and actually I’ve seen drawings, and I don’t doubt for a moment that the Muslim plotters, in the mosque in Hamburg who laid out the plans for 9/11, I don’t doubt for a moment that they encountered those same plans. I don’t think they thought of this themselves. This was the fulfillment of a dream that was really put in place early on in World War II.
Lapin is referring to Spandau: The Secret Diaries, by Albert Speer. In his entry for 18 November 1947, Speer recalls that
I never saw [Hitler] so worked up as toward the end of the war, when in a kind of delirium he pictured for himself and for us the destruction of New York in a hurricane of fire. He described the skyscrapers being turned into gigantic burning torches, collapsing upon one another, the glow of the exploding city illuminating the dark sky. Then, as if finding his way back to reality from a frenzy, he declared that Saur must immediately carry our Messerschmitt’s scheme for a four-engine long-range jet bomber. With such range we could repay America a thousand-fold for the destruction of our cities.
The plan for a “jet bomber” is mentioned again in passing in the entry for 2 November 1953. There is no mention of Manhattan, and no concept of a suicide mission: the “jet bomber” was obviously envisioned as dropping bombs on New York, rather than as being a bomb itself.
Last year, Lapin took part in Glenn Beck’s “Divine Destiny”, as one of Beck’s “Black Robe Regiment” of conservative pastors. A subsequent Media Matterspost, drawing on earlier Washington Post reports, notes Lapin’s links to Jack Abramoff, whom I previously discussed here.
Jerry Boykin last week sat down with Paul Crouch Jr. of the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s show First To Know to discuss a new movie based on his autobiography “Never Surrender.” Boykin, who earlier this month demanded that mosques be banned in America, told Crouch that the Church needs to become more politically active because of threats to religious freedom from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and MoveOn. He called on viewers to work “so that the Church emerges as the dominant influence in America,” adding, “I refuse to believe that we can’t, because God told us to occupy.”
Boykin: The Church had the dominant influence in America. Today we have ceded that to other organizations like the ACLU and MoveOn.org and Code Pink and ACORN. It is time for the Church, for Bible-believing Christians regardless of denomination, to unify and understand that we truly serve the same God, Jesus Christ, and we need to come before Him and ask for His forgiveness for where this nation has gone and how we’ve turned our backs on God, and ask God to lead us to do our part, individually, to do our part to make a difference in America so that the Church emerges as the dominant influence in America in what we were called to be, again, the salt and light for this nation.
Crouch: And that in your opinion, that is possible? We can take this nation back, in your opinion?
Boykin: We absolutely can take this nation back and I refuse to believe that we can’t, because God told us to occupy.
Harry Potter Teaching Kids Witchcraft Because America Bows To Pagan God
by David Badash on September 16, 2011
Harry Potter is teaching kids witchcraft and America now bows to a Pagan god, warns Pastor John Hagee in his TV special, (apparently not from New York,) “Faith Under Fire.” And what is that “Pagan god?” Why, it’s called secular humanism, and it’s the scourge of the earth, evidently. Hagee, who is a Texas megachurch founder and author of the recent book, Can America Survive? Updated Edition: Startling Revelations and Promises of Hope, (actually, the author of a lot of books,) says that we can blame rape, spousal abuse, drugs, divorce and crime all on secular Humanism. Good Lord!
Thanks to Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch for this transcript and for the video:
Secular humanism is a pagan god and America is bowing at the shrine. It has filled our drug rehab centers, it has filled the divorce courts, it has filled the shelter for battered wives, it has filled the rape crisis centers, it has filled the mental hospitals and single bars, it has filled the penitentiaries and the roster guests for the brain-dead television shows you see from New York.
Think about that, we’re in a moral free fall where your children can be taught witchcraft by Harry Potter; that Heather has two mommies; you can substitute Christmas for a midwinter holiday, call it anything you want to but don’t call it Christmas, kick God out of the Christmas event; you can let your daughter go to school and she can get an abortion without your permission or without your knowledge but she cannot get an aspirin without your knowledge.
Something is dreadfully wrong when you as the parent cannot control the destiny of your own child. America has turned its back from the God of the Bible and it is time for the church of Jesus Christ to stand up and speak up and say we have a right to the destiny of our own children!
Before you go dismissing crazies like Hagee, know this (Via Wikipedia):
Hagee is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in the United States on 160 TV stations, 50 radio stations, and eight networks, including The Inspiration Network (INSP), Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), and Inspiration Now TV. The ministries can be seen and heard weekly in 99 million homes. John Hagee Ministries is in Canada on the Miracle Channel and CTS and can be seen inAfrica, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and in most Third World nations.
…
In 2007, Hagee stated that he does not believe in global warming, and he also said that he sees the Kyoto Protocol as a conspiracy aimed at manipulating the U.S. economy. Also, Hagee has condemned the Evangelical Climate Initiative, an initiative “signed by 86 evangelical leaders acknowledging the seriousness of global warming and pledging to press for legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions.”
Hagee denounces abortion, and stopped giving money to Israel’s Hadassah Medical Center when it began performing the procedure.
He has spoken out against homosexuality, linking its presence in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina as an act of divine retribution. He said in 2006, “I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.” However, on April 25, 2008, Hagee clarified his comments regarding Hurricane Katrina by saying, “But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise.”
Want to know what really scares Hagee? Why, it’s secular Humanism. Here’s why (via Wikipedia):
Secular Humanism is a comprehensive life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead happy and functional lives. Though it posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently or innately good, nor presents humans as “above nature” or superior to it. Rather, the Humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of Secular Humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology — be it religious or political — must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of Secular Humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through science and philosophy.
(All emphases mine.)
Frankly, I’ve never understood why anyone would need to believe in or pray to God to know right from wrong. Perhaps secular Humanism isn’t the problem, perhaps it’s the answer.
Anders Breivik’s manifesto reveals a subculture of nationalistic and Islamophobic websites that link the European and American far right in a paranoid alliance against Islam and is also rooted in some democratically elected parties.
The Guardian has analysed the webpages he links to, and the pages that these in turn link to, in order to expose a spider web of hatred based around three “counter-jihad” sites, two run by American rightwingers, and one by an eccentric Norwegian. All of these draw some of their inspiration from the Egyptian Jewish exile Gisele Littman, who writes under the name of Bat Ye’or, and who believes that the European elites have conspired against their people to hand the continent over to Muslims.
As well as his very long manifesto, Breivik also laid out some of his thoughts on the Norwegian nationalist site Document.no. In his postings there, Breivik referred to something he called “the Vienna school of thought”, which consists of the people who had worked out the ideology that inspired him to commit mass murder. He named three people in particular: Littman; the Norwegian Peder Jensen who wrote under the pseudonym of Fjordman; and the American Robert Spencer, who maintains a site called Jihad Watch, and agitates against “the Islamisation of America”.
But the name also alludes to a blog called Gates of Vienna, run by an American named Edward “Ned” May, on which Fjordman posted regularly and which claims that Europe is now as much under threat from a Muslim invasion as it was in 1683, when a Turkish army besieged Vienna.
All of these paranoid fantasists share a vision articulated by the Danish far-right activist Anders Gravers, who has links with the EDL in Britain and with Spencer and his co-conspiracist Pamela Geller in the US. Gravers told a conference in Washington last year:
“The European Union acts secretly, with the European people being deceived about its development. Democracy is being deliberately removed, and the latest example being the Lisbon Treaty. However the plan goes much further with an ultimate goal of being a Eurabian superstate, incorporating Muslim countries of north Africa and the Middle East in the European Union. This was already initiated with the signing of the Barcelona treaty in 1995 by the EU and nine north African states and Israel, which became effective on the 1st of January, 2010. It is also known as the Euro-Mediterranean co-operation. In return for some European control of oil resources, Muslim countries will have unfettered access to technology and movement of people into Europe. The price Europeans will have to pay is the introduction of sharia law and removal of democracy.”
Spencer’s jihadwatch.org is linked to 116 times from Breivik’s manifesto; May’s Gates of Vienna 86 times; and Fjordman 114 times.
Spencer and Geller were the organisers of the protest against the so-called 9/11 mosque in New York City. They also took over Stop Islamisation of America, a movement with links to the EDL and to a variety of far-right movements across Europe. Of the two, Spencer is less of a fringe figure. He has been fulsomely interviewed by the Catholic Herald in this country and praised by Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, who called him “a profound and subtle thinker”. Damian Thompson, a leader writer on the Telegraph, once urged his readers to buy Spencer’s works, especially if they believed that Islam was “a religion of peace”. Last week, Spencer’s blog re-ran a piece from Geller’s Atlas Shrugged website claiming that Governor Rick Perry, the creationist rightwinger from Texas, is actually linked to Islamists via Grover Norquist, the far-right tax cutter whom Geller claims is “a front for the Muslim Brotherhood”. Geller also once republished a blogpost speculating that President Obama is the love child of Malcolm X.
As well as the “counter-jihad” websites such as Spencer’s and May’s, analysis of Breivik’s web reveals a dense network of 104 European nationalist sites and political parties. Some of these are represented in parliaments: Geert Wilders’s Dutch Freedom party; the French National Front; the Danish People’s party, the Norwegian Progress party (of which Breivik was briefly a member before he left, disgusted with its moderation); the Sweden Democrats. Others, like the EDL, are fringe groupings. Then there are those in between, such as the Hungarian far-right party Jobbik. But they range all across Europe. They are united by hostility to Muslims and to the EU.
One place where these strands intertwine is the Brussels Journal, a website run by the Belgian Catholic MEP Paul Belien, a member of the far-right Vlaams Belang party. The British Europhobic Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan appeared for three years on the Brussels Journal’s masthead. Hannan has since denounced the European neo-fascist parties as not really rightwing at all.
To appear on this list is not to be complicit in Breivik’s crime. Peder “Fjordman” Jensen was so shocked by it that he gave himself up to the police and gave an interview to a Norwegian paper in which he appeared genuinely bewildered that his predictions of a European civil war should have led anyone to such violence.
It is still more unfair to blame Melanie Phillips. Although she was cited by Breivik at length for an article claiming that the British elite had deliberately encouraged immigration in order to break down traditional society and she has written that “Bat Ye’or’s scholarship is awesome and her analysis is as persuasive as it is terrifying“, she has also argued, with nearly equal ferocity, against the “counter-jihad” belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
The world view of the counter-jihadis echoes that of the jihadis they feel threatened by. The psychological world of the jihadis has been described by the British psychiatrist Russell Razzaque, who rejected recruitment by Hizb ut-Tahrir when he was a medical student. It is not just a matter of a black-and-white world view, he says, though that is part of it. “It’s a very warm embrace. You felt a sense of self-esteem, a sense of real embrace. Then it gives you a sense of purpose, which is also something you’ve never had so much. The purpose is a huge one. Part of a cosmic struggle when you’re on the right side: you’re another generation in the huge fight that goes back to the crusades.”
This clearly mirrors Breivik’s self-image. What makes him particularly frightening is that he seems to have radicalised himself, just as jihadis do, before he went looking for advice and guidance on the internet. But he was able to take the last few steps into mass murder all alone, so far as we know. Jihadi groups also withdraw from the world into a cramped and paranoid universe of their own. Suicide bombers such as the 9/11 and 7/7 groups spent months psyching each other up before the crime, talking obsessively for hours every day. But Breivik, though he withdrew from society to his farm, seems to have spent his time alone with the internet. It allowed him to hear his own choir of imaginary friends, and hear inside his head their voices cheering him on to murder and martyrdom. Here they are, mapped.
Censorship: YouTube Pulls Video Of Chabadnik Beating Child
YouTube/Google again shows that it cannot be trusted. A security camera video from the Western Wall in Jerusalem showing a French Chabad-Lubavitch hasid brutally beating his daughter, made public in Israel and which has NO copyright, has been removed by YouTube for “violating” its “terms of service.”
YouTube is at it again, censoring a perfectly legitimate video that happens to make an organization some of its censors allegedly affiliate with look bad.
I posted on the video here at 12:46 am this morning, embedding the YouTube video that had been posted there a few hours earlier.
I also asked a reader to rip a copy of the video for me, because I was positive Chabad would have it censored within a few hours, because Google has a history of banning sites from its AdWords program that post legitimate news stories that are embarrassing for Chabad, and of deleting YouTube videos that do the same.
Shortly after that reader ripped the video, I went to bed.
I woke up to a phone call from another reader telling me the original video had been yanked by YouTube.
[Update 3:10 pm CDT – The reader who updated the video to YouTube and Vimeo for me just told me that the adults only warning and the requirement to prove your age before viewing the video is more Google censorship. Thereader did not restrict his upload in any way.]
YouTube’s excuse for this censorship will be that the video is violent.
There is no blood and the 12-year-old girl – while shaken and upset – is still walking and functioning normally after after the beating, and the man is seen being detained by bystanders and then being arrested by police.
The video was aired by Israel’s Channel 2 – which identifies it as security camera video – and has circulated widely in Israel since it aired late yesterday. It has no copyright.
It was uploaded to YouTube by an Israeli, and it’s description in Hebrew is as follows:
עבריין ‘חרדי’ (צרפתי) מכה את בתו בת ה-12 בברוטליות, בכותל המערבי לעיני עוברים ושבים, וסיכן את חייה,
אנשים כאלה צריך לסרס!!!
This video is no more violent than news video shown across the US every day on broadcast TV – and which is often posted on YouTube, as well.
YouTube’s real reason for removing this video is the same, I think, as it was when it removed IDF videos taken during Operation Cast Lead and released by the IDF to dispel lies told about it by Hamas, or videos right wing pundit Michelle Maklkin made.
Google wasn’t enforcing its policy – it was censoring someone or some organization or, in these cases, some country it’s censors doesn’t like and some pundit its censors don’t like, because none of these videos came even remotely close to violating any of YouTube’s terms of service.
YouTube’s censors clearly dislike Israel’s government and army, and that dislike prompts their actions.
YouTube’s censors clearly dislike Michelle Malkin’s opinions (as do I), and that dislike prompts their actions.
In our case today, the video puts one group of people in very bad light – Chabad. Because on this video you see a Chabad hasid beating his 12-year-old daughter for no apparent reason, and in a way that is far more severe than the law would allow.
It is child abuse.
The security camera video of the incident serves two purposes beyond news – it puts this man’s community, friends and relatives on notice, making it far easier for police and child welfare to protect the child, the man’s other children, and his spouse and, secondly, it educates the haredi community about child abuse.
But YouTube cares nothing about that.
Hundreds of girls could be beaten just like this every day. YouTube’s censors would cluck and moan about the damage done to children by brutal men.
But the moment a video of an incident hits YouTube and makes one of the censor’s pet organizations or pet causes look bad, the video is pulled, censored.
What does that mean?
It means the girls’ voices are censored.
It means the removal of the best tool these tiny victims have to protect themselves and others.
And it is a dream come true for the men who beat, rape and abuse, a present to them of infinate value from Google, Inc.
This disgusting behavior permeates through all of Google, which behaves exactly the same way with its AdWords program and DoubleClick, and with every other service it offers – except, it claims, with search.
When the US Department of Justice serves Google’s founders and its CEO with subpoenas, when they become personally liable for their company’s unethical, illegal actions, perhaps this politically minded censorship will stop.
Until then, when you see Sergey Brin in a coffee house or on the street, don’t view him as a Silicon Valley rock star.
View Brin, Schmidt, and Page and the rest of Google’s board for what they really are: the people who leads the public book burning of some classic of literature that, nonetheless, offends them.
In fact, here’s a list of the members of Google’s board.
Make sure to let them know that you don’t appreciate Google’s censorship, that you have asked your Congressperson and Senators to ask the Department of Justice to investigate Google.
Larry Page, Google Inc.
Eric E. Schmidt, Google Inc.
Sergey Brin, Google Inc.
L. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
John L. Hennessy, Stanford University
Ann Mather
Paul S. Otellini, Intel Corporation
K. Ram Shriram, Sherpalo Ventures
Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton University
Thankfully, Israeli police arrested the man, determined that he has French citizenship, and deported him. They also notified French police and Interpol.
But the crime was committed in Israel and Israel chose to deport rather than prosecute the criminal.
That means he is probably free now in France, and able to beat his children oand his wife whenever the urge strikes, unless child welfare in France has stepped in strongly – but that does not appear to be the case.
That’s where you come in.
Show this video to every Chabad rabbi you know, especially if you are in France. Make sure that they understand that you care about this girl and that you want them to take steps inside the community to help protect her, her siblings and he mother.
If you know this man, do even more. Show the video to his parents and siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.
Show it to the TV stations in his hometown and to the newspapers.
Make sure that he is exposed.
A man like this cannot live in a household with children, because the children will never be safe if he does.
Exposing him can make his removal from the household possible.
Here’s the video, ripped at my request by an FM reader, and reposted on YouTube. If this is also censored by Google then you will have an even stronger case that Google should to be broken up:
And here’s the same video, ripped and reposted by the same FM reader on Vimeo:
I’m used to politicians pandering to religious Americans.
There’s more of them, so there are more votes to be gained by speaking their “language.” That coupled with the fact that President Obama is a Christian just meant we could expect a lot of religious references in his speech in Tucson, Arizona yesterday.
There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy pull through.
As Scripture tells us:
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
…
But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.
…
May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.
I’m sure a lot of you feel it’s too much. He shouldn’t have made any religious references at all and this was overkill.
But somehow, none of those passages fazed me. They went in one ear and out the other. I’m so used to hearing them by now, I feel almost immune to them.
Until I heard the President talk about Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl who died in the shooting. Obama spoke about her in some detail early in his speech, and then at the end of it, he said this:
If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today.
Ugh…
No. There are no rain puddles in heaven. Christina is not jumping in them. Hell, there’s not even a heaven in the first place.
I hate this idea that we have to create imaginary memories for people who die young, as if we couldn’t find anything happier to remember them by during their lifetimes. For all the joy Christina surely provided her family with during her life, Obama chose instead to invoke this fake scenario that I feel cheapens her memory.
I realize I’m probably overreacting. This was one line in a very long (and honestly beautiful) speech.
It just rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t know if I’m alone in this.
Frank Schaeffer, son of the famous evangelical, appears here being interviewed by Rachel Maddow about the poll that discovered that 1 in 3 of NJ Conservatives truly believe that Obama is the Anti-Christ.
We apparently have a sub-culture of belief that rejects facts and embraces beyond-crazy.
To be quite frank, this is a complete social disaster … facts are not relevant to these folks, and what is truly scary is that there are no republicans with a sufficient quantity of backbone and integrity to stand up and oppose this utter insanity.
,) says that we can blame rape, spousal abuse, drugs, divorce and crime all on secular Humanism. Good Lord!
The Age of Blasphemy 